


always in my heart

by deokyeomie



Category: Pentagon (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Blowjobs, Coming Out, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Past Relationship(s), Side Hui/Hyo, Slight Smut, Slow Burn, The main character is supposed to be a bit annoying, bear with me, no underage tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2020-12-31 17:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21149144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deokyeomie/pseuds/deokyeomie
Summary: "Yuto’s gaze had a question in it Hyunggu couldn’t quite figure out. Dark brown eyes almost drew Hyunggu in, almost made him fall to the ground, right into the dirt of the cruel world, but Hyunggu managed to keep himself from falling, managed to catch himself. He wasn’t so sure Yuto could say the same."___________________Or the one in which Kang Hyunggu and Choi Hana have been dating since they were 14 and everything changes when a Japanese boy transfers into their class.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Hello lovely readers!
> 
> I have been working on this for ages now, not gonna lie. I edited it what feels like a million times and am finally satisfied with what I wrote. I hope you enjoy it as well. Before we get to it though (if you even read notes, do people exist that don't read notes? I don't know), I just wanted to let you guys know that I tried my very best to make it as "relatable" as possible, to not make it seemed forced, but tell a story that could easily happen in real life. If at any point I did not succeed in portraying it the way I wanted to I deeply apologise. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

Everyone knows those silly stories. Childhood friends, boy and girl, destined to fall in love at some point, destined to be boyfriend and girlfriend.

Choi Hana’s parents as well as Kang Hyunggu’s parents had predicted the same thing for their two youngest children, as they had been inseparable ever since they had first met in kindergarten.

The older they grew the more their parents waited for the usual signs, the sneaking out at times they weren’t supposed to, the never ending talking about the other. And at some point, they both were about fourteen, it had finally happened. They were caught kissing in the Kang family’s backyard, not like fully making out, more a small kiss on the lips. The Kang parents had acted angry, as they were supposed to be, but they had called the Choi parents soon after and congratulated them. Their plan had come together. Their children had fallen in love.

The problem with predictions like this, with expectations like this was only that at some point being expected to do something drives children away from their parents, drives them away from doing what they are expected to.

Some time when Hyunggu and Hana had turned 15, they broke up, not talking to each other for two months.

Hana had, at that time, already been deeply in love with Hyunggu. As much in love you as can be at 15. The days went by slowly for the young girl, who started missing her best, slash, ex-boyfriend the first day they parted ways. She thought about his pretty eyes and the smile that made her heart race every time she saw it.

Already then, she knew that this boy was her first and only love, that there simply _couldn’t_ be anyone else for her. Just thinking about losing him made her cry miserably. Remembering that this had been her choice as well, she became even angrier with herself and she cried even more.

Hyunggu wasn’t a lot different from Hana. Missing her daily, wanting to call her when he knew he shouldn’t. Hana was his better half, the one to keep him on the ground when his head was full of fantasies, daring him to fly up into the sky and never come back.

In many ways, Hana was more than his best friend and the first girl he ever felt a connection with, she was almost like a guardian, like an angel sent from heaven to take care of him.

The day they started talking again was also the day Hana had gotten her first love letter from a boy that wasn’t Hyunggu.

_She stared at the letter with eyes as big as saucers. _

**“I’m sure you don’t know how pretty you are, Choi Hana, and that makes me sad. Because you are the most beautiful girl I know. – H.”**

_Hana’s heart was racing. _

_“Hana! This must be from Hyunggu! It’s signed with an H!”, Jisoo had whispered excitedly next to Hana and Chaeyoung nodded rapidly, a grin on her face. _

_Hana lifted her head, searching for Hyunggu in their classroom, and there he was, sitting at his table with Wooseok, right there in the second row. He was hovered over his new smart phone, showing his best friend whatever. _

_“It’s not him”, she finally said, “I know his handwriting”, slipping the letter into her bag, she slowly got up. Her friends shared a look, before watching Hana walking over to Hyunggu’s table._

_“Hyunggu-ya”, Hana said after clearing her throat. Hyunggu and Wooseok jerked up, Hyunggu’s gaze meeting her‘s._

_“Hana-ya”, he responded, kind of sounding like a question. Hana bit her lip and put a lose strand of hair behind her ear._

_“Can we talk?”_

_“What do you mean you‘ve got a love letter?”, Hyunggu looked angrier than she had ever seen him. Hana pressed her lips together, shrugging._

_“I don’t know who sent it. It was just signed with an H. Do you think it was maybe Wooseokie? Trying to get us back together?”, Hyunggu snorted at that, shaking his head._

_“No. He wouldn’t do that. Was it one of your friends?”_

_“It was a boy’s handwriting.”_

_“Someone could have faked it.”_

_“Yeah, or someone who starts with an H at this school actually wrote it because they think I am pretty”, Hana got defensive, crossing her arms. Hyunggu looked at her for a second, before quietly swearing and taking a step towards her._

_“I think you’re pretty. Isn’t that enough?”, his eyes bored into hers and Hana swallowed hard, not able to shift her eyes to somewhere else. He was hypnotising._

_“You broke up with me.”_

_“We broke up with each other, Hana.”_

_She bit her lip again._

_“Well. Do you want to get back together?”, she said before she could even think about it twice but as it turned out it hadn’t been the wrong thing to say. Hyunggu quickly got rid of the left distance between them, placing a sweet kiss on her cheek, before looking into her eyes again._

_“Yes. I want that.”_

Once Hyunggu and Hana had turned 18, they had just started their third year of high school, people were starting to be more aware of their relationship. Having entered puberty and a stage of life where relationships could get more serious, especially in terms of physical affection, Hana noticed more and more that Hyunggu just… wasn’t too comfortable with the topic of sex. That was quite alright for her, at least at that time, because sex, to her, was something she wasn’t curious to experience any time soon.

But nevertheless, every time she and Hyunggu ended up making out a little bit longer and deeper than the time before that, Hyunggu would stop and say he wasn’t ready, while… well, while Hana more and more wanted to actually go a little further.

“You should just go down on him, boys like that”, Jisoo said one day at lunch and Hana almost choked on her rice.

“Jisoo!”, Chaeyoung threw a napkin at their friend. But Jisoo just shrugged and looked at Hana.

“If you want to get more intimate with him, just _do_ something about it. He _is _your boyfriend, after all.”

Hana took a long sip of her water, her eyes darting to the table Hyunggu was sitting at not far from her own, surrounded by Wooseok and some other boys from the class above theirs. He was laughing at something someone said, holding his hand in front of his mouth and there was this spark in his eyes, Hana loved so much. She put her glass down and looked at her two friends.

“You know what? I’ll try it.”

“Wait, really?”, Jisoo looked at her in surprise.

“You don’t have to do that! Just because Jisoo is a little bit slutty, doesn’t mean you have to be too”, Chaeyoung put a hand on Hana’s shoulder.

“Hey!”, Jisoo threw the napkin from before right back at Chaeyoung.

Hana didn’t pay much attention to what her friends were saying next, as she started planning how to get Hyunggu in the right situation to, well, go down on him.

The couple went home together that day, their fingers intertwined and Hyunggu telling Hana about that funny thing Wooseok said at lunch today that had almost made Shinwon choke on his fried egg, but Hana couldn’t really focus on it. She looked at her boyfriend and wondered if he even liked the idea of her doing what she had in mind. A part of her was scared of rejection, the other was scared of not doing it right and disappointing Hyunggu.

“Hana are you listening to me?”, Hyunggu tilted his head to the side, looking at her with a just slight noticeable pout.

Hana was brought back into reality, clearing her throat.

“Oh, I’m sorry Hyunggu”, she said, giving him an apologetic smile, “so what did Wooseok say?”

They arrived at Hana’s place and Hyunggu leaned down to give her a small kiss on the lips, when Hana pulled him in, pressing their lips together in a manner that definitely implied that she wanted more than just an innocent kiss. Hyunggu was caught of guard, feeling Hana’s hands on his neck and her tongue sliding along his bottom lip, something he still wasn’t really sure how to feel about.

Still, he returned the favour, putting his hands on Hana’s cheeks and closing his eyes, trying his very best not to push her away even if a voice inside of him told him to do so.

“Hyunggu”, Hana breathed after a while, leaning her forehead against his, “my parents are still at work, do you want to come in?”

Hyunggu’s face took on the colour of a tomato, he was sure of it. His insides started to scream, and his brain tried to put the pieces together even though it really wasn’t hard to understand what Hana was asking. He swallowed hard, hating himself for not being excited about her offer, hating himself for wanting to bail.

It really wasn’t like he didn’t want to kiss her. He did! He loved her, found her beautiful. She was a sight to behold, beautiful full rose lips, a sweet little nose, eyes the exact shape of an almond – he wanted to kiss her, he wanted to hold her tight and say sweet nothings to her.

And yet – seeing her now, lips a little bit swollen from the heated kiss, cheeks flushed red, he couldn’t feel anything but the strong need to run away.

“Hana- “, he started, not sure what exactly to say, but his girlfriend interrupted him.

“I won’t make you do anything you’re not ready for, Hyunggu-ya, I promise you. I just…I just wanna try something. Please come inside with me?”

Her brown eyes looked so hopeful up at him, Hyunggu felt his heart break a little at the thought of her ever finding out what was actually going on inside his head.

“Okay, yeah, of course I’ll go with you”, he pulled her into a hug and gave the top of her head a kiss, hoping she wouldn’t hear how fast his heart was beating. He could literally feel her smile against his chest and somehow, for a small moment, he forgot all his worries and was just happy she was happy.

Once they got inside, leaving their shoes at the front door and making their way upstairs into Hana’s room, Hyunggu started to realise what was about to happen. Or, well, he started to realise that he had no idea what was about to happen. He just knew _something _was going to happen and that _something _would most probably involve them making out or what not. His heartbeat increased again as he got dragged into his girlfriend’s room. To his relief Hana didn’t jump his bones right there, no, she sat down on her bed, patting the free space next to her and looking at him expectantly. Hyunggu nodded, sitting down next to her and giving her a smile he hoped she wouldn’t notice was filled with more than just a few worries.

“So…”, Hana started, biting her lip and avoiding Hyunggu’s gaze, “I was thinking and, well, I know you want to take it slow and I really don’t have a problem with that, really! I just...I just would like to, uh, well, to make you feel good.”

Hyunggu blinked a few times, not entirely sure what Hana was talking about. Make him feel good? Hyunggu’s head was spinning and he looked at her for a few seconds before it finally clicked.

“Oh.”

Hana turned red, her cheeks burning like fire.

“I…I don’t have to, I just…I wanted to try and- “

“No, it’s fine. You…You can try.”

Hyunggu finally got Hana to look up at him. She seemed surprised and Hyunggu couldn’t even blame her. It had surprised him as well. But…in a way, yeah, Hyunggu was curious what it would feel like if someone else, well, touched him down _there._

“A-Are you sure?”, Hana felt kind of shy suddenly, as if she hadn’t been the one to suggest it in the first place. Hyunggu nodded slowly, trying to resist the urge to bite down on his lip. Instead he just pressed his upper down on the bottom and waited for Hana to say something.

“Well, then…”, she finally breathed out, her eyes shifting to Hyunggu’s lips. That he could do.

He leaned forward, pressing their lips together, putting his hand back on her cheek, as she placed her hands on his back, pulling herself a little closer to him.

They kissed for a while, sweet and slow at first, hands only stroking places they were used to. Then, Hana slowly moved her hand to the front, placing it on Hyunggu’s right thigh. Both of their heartbeats sped up, Hyunggu letting her hand proceed until she softly pressed against his crotch. He knew she had never done this, neither had he, and he knew that she was just as nervous as him. So he wasn’t even a tiny bit upset when she pressed a little too hard, making him hiss. She quickly apologised, her cheeks burning again, but Hyunggu shook his head, assuring her that everything was okay, she hadn’t done anything wrong. He kissed her again, slowly leaving kisses from her lips to her neck, somehow clutched by a sudden feeling of confidence. This was his girlfriend, the girl he _loved_. There was no reason to be shy or not want to be intimate with her. Right?

Hana took a moment before she finally opened up his belt and pants, growing more excited by the second. Hyunggu was aware of the fact that she could feel his excitement as well as hers. He tried his best to not feel awkward about it, about Hana helping him out of his pants and about Hana feeling the bulge in his briefs. He closed his eyes, giving in to the touch and he almost moaned out loud, when her hands grabbed for the waistband of his briefs, slowly caressing the sensitive skin on his belly, before pulling those down as well, leaving him half naked on her bed.

Hana had never seen a dick in real life. She had seen some like pictures of it, drawings in school books. But she had never seen one in real life, right in front of her. So, she didn’t know whether Hyunggu’s was big or small or average, all she knew was that she badly wanted to touch it and so she did. She wrapped her hand around it like she had heard was good and looked up at Hyunggu, pleased as she saw him with his eyes closed and mouth slightly hanging open.

Just as slowly, Hana started to move her hand, still watching Hyunggu without ever taking her eyes off him. He was simply too beautiful. Eyes flattering, eyelashes long and thick, black as the hair on his head that slightly fell into his forehead. She used her free hand to softly wipe it out of his face, brushing her fingertips over his forehead, cheek and lastly his parted lips.

They looked a little dry, and so she leaned forward, kissing him, tongue twirling over his bottom lip before meeting Hyunggu’s own tongue inside his mouth, feeling heat radiating from their bodies.

As much as she enjoyed kissing him, though, she still had another plan, still wanted to try what Jisoo had told her to.

And so, she quickly got up, dropping on her knees in between Hyunggu’s legs, looking up at him for a short second, only catching a glimpse of him opening his eyes in surprise and widening even more when he saw where Hana was seated. Right there in front of his crotch, on her knees, eagerness in her eyes.

Hyunggu’s heart seemed to skip at least two beats when he saw her like that. A part of him thought it was exciting, exciting to know what she was about to do, what she had had in her mind. Another part of him was overwhelmed in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

He felt overwhelmed with the feeling of having someone wanting to actually go and suck his dick, to say the least. He also felt overwhelmed by Hana herself, his beautiful and innocent Hana who was now looking down on his rather hard dick, looking at it with a hunger he had never seen in her eyes before.

It happened quicker than he had seen it coming, Hana leaning forward and licking the top of his dick, making Hyunggu squeeze his eyes together, before he gasped for air, as she licked at it again this time slower with more pressure. Hyunggu’s breath was short lived, his chest was rising and falling in an unsteady rhythm and every single inch of his skin seemed to tingle.

When she finally took him inside her mouth, he buckled his hips, making Hana cough and he instantly wanted to apologise, but she had already started bobbing her head, letting her tongue swirl around his shaft and his tip, making Hyunggu’s eyes turn backwards.

“Holy shit, Hana”, he somehow managed to breathe out and Hana couldn’t help but to feel a little proud.

It wasn’t exactly tasty, Hana figured. But it also wasn’t too bad. In the beginning she had closed her eyes, trying to just concentrate on making Hyunggu feel good, but at some point, probably around the time he had sworn under his breath, Hana had started to watch Hyunggu as she sucked his dick, bobbing her head and doing whatever she could with her tongue.

Was this something people could just do naturally? Sucking dick? She didn’t know, but the way it seemed she wasn’t doing too bad of a job.

Hyunggu’s face was flushed, his eyes closed and his lips red and swollen, teeth sinking into the bottom lip from time to time. Hana wanted to kiss him, wanted to feel him inside of her and not just her mouth.

This realisation hit her like a brick. Never before had she thought about wanting to have sex, at least not like this. She had never really imagined it before, not without feeling some kind of guilt, not without feeling as if she was stepping over a line. But right now she wanted nothing more than to get on top of him and feel him inside of her as she kissed him, as he kissed her, as they became one.

Hyunggu, on the other hand, couldn’t really think about anything but the feeling of a wet and hot mouth around his dick, couldn’t really focus on anything else than the sensation running through his body and so, after maybe one minute of Hana sucking him off, he gasped, bucking his hips again.

“Hana, I’m co-coming”, he stuttered, eyes squeezed together still, expecting her to stop, but instead she kept going, quickening her movements even. Hyunggu moaned grabbing onto her hair and throwing his head back, coming into her mouth just a few seconds later. He swore under his breath again, riding out his orgasm, still inside of her mouth.

Hana didn’t really enjoy this, but she also wasn’t not-enjoying it. She liked the sounds Hyunggu made, liked the fact that she was the one making him spill into her mouth, liked that she could take his whole length without gagging as much as she thought she would.

When Hana’s mouth left Hyunggu’s dick, she wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt, looking up at Hyunggu, who was still recovering from the orgasm he just had. Hana bit her lip, slowly getting up from the floor and sitting down on the bed again. Her heart started to beat at a quick speed again, watching how Hyunggu opened his eyes, looking at his girlfriend without saying a word until-

  
“I don’t really know what to say, I think you sucked the brain out of me.”

Hana laughed at that dumb remark, hitting his shoulder.

“So, it was okay?”, she asked shily, crossing her legs and biting down on her lip.

“Okay?”, Hyunggu pulled her close, looking into her eyes.

“That was beyond all the adjectives describing something good that I know”, he smirked, giving her cheek a kiss, “I don’t know if it’s appropriate to say this, but, uh, thank you.”

They locked eyes again and Hana smiled, rubbing her nose against his, before leaning her head against his shoulder.

“No, thank you”, she whispered, leaving a smile on Hyunggu’s face.

At this point neither of them could even guess what was about to happen.

How their lives were about to change forever.

Now nothing would ever be the same.

*

Having overslept, Hyunggu was basically running to school on his own, carrying his bag on one arm, as the other was busy shoving an apple into his mouth once in a while.

He already had the feeling that this day would suck, not only arriving five minutes late to class, but also being greeted with a more or less annoyed Hana.

Sitting down on his usual chair next to Wooseok, he wasn’t even greeted with more than a cold gaze from his girlfriend.

“What’s her problem?”, Wooseok whispered to him, apparently having seen her behaviour as well. Hyunggu sighed, leaning back in his chair as their math teacher started writing equations on the board.

The black-haired boy shrugged, crossing his arms.

“No idea, to be honest. Maybe she is upset I didn’t call her after practise yesterday.”

Wooseok slowly turned around to Hana, who was scribbling something onto her notebook. He raised his eyebrow and turned to Hyunggu again.

“How do you manage to always make her angry, dude? Hana is literally the most chill girl I know and yet, you always get her to be mad”, Hyunggu laughed at that, pulling a hand through his hair.

“I guess that’s love, _dude_”, he replied, earning a roll of eyes from his best friend.

“Kang Hyunggu, Jung Wooseok! Do you want to spend the rest of the class outside?”, their teacher turned around, shooting them an annoyed look. The boys sat up straight and shook their heads, as their gazes were set on the table in front of them.

It was then that someone knocked on the door, making them raise their heads again.

“Yes?”, the teacher sighed, putting down the chalk and placing his hands on his hips.

The door opened and their homeroom teacher, Miss Kim, came in, followed by a tall boy with black hair and a grey bag pack hanging off his broad shoulders. The class all looked at him and especially the girls started to whisper, a giggle was heard here and there.

Hyunggu couldn’t help but stare at him.

“Class, this is a new student. He will be joining us starting from today”, Miss Kim announced, hands clasped in front of her.

“Why don’t you say a word or two to introduce yourself?”, she smiled at the new boy, who nodded slightly and looked up, giving everyone a clear view of his incredibly handsome face.

Hyunggu, for whatever reason, felt his breath being stuck in his throat.

“I’m Adachi Yuto, I just moved here from Japan a few days ago and, uh, yeah. I hope we will all get along”, he slightly bowed down to the class, waiting for further instructions.

“Well, Adachi Yuto, it’s nice to have you here. Please take the seat next to Choi Hana”, Miss Kim pointed to Hana, who was looking at Yuto with big eyes, impressed by his remarkable beauty as much as the others.

Hyunggu turned around to her, feeling a sting of jealousy in his chest. With a frown on his face he followed the new guy walking over to the only free seat in the class and finally sitting down.

A wave of teenage excitement rushed over Hana as she watched Yuto sit down next to her. She slowly bowed her head as their eyes met and he did the same, a small smile on his lips.

Hyunggu was still watching them, grinding his teeth.

“Ah, Hyunggu-ya, don’t worry about him! Hana probably won’t even notice how handsome he is”, Wooseok patted Hyunggu’s shoulder before turning back around in his seat, leaving Hyunggu to stare at his girlfriend and the new guy all by himself.

Once math was over, Hyunggu shot up from his seat, walking straight to Hana who was in a deep conversation with Jisoo and the new guy. To his disliking she was even smiling at him brightly, flashing him her perfect rows of white teeth.

He noticeably cleared his throat and caught their attention. His eyes met Hana’s for a second, then he looked at Yuto, greeting him with an obvious fake smile.

“Hello, I am Kang Hyunggu. Welcome to our school. Would you mind if I steal _my girlfriend _away for a sec?”, without awaiting an answer, he grabbed Hana by the arm and basically dragged her outside.

“Hey!”, Hana cried, finally able to escape his grip once they were outside.

“What the hell, Hyunggu?”, she frowned, rubbing her wrist where he had grabbed her. Hyunggu snorted.

“Me? What about you? Why didn’t you ask him to eat your face right there, huh?”

“Eat my face? What the- “,

“Ah, don’t play innocent, Hana! I saw the way you looked at him!”

Hana’s mouth dropped for a second, before she started laughing. Hyunggu didn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Are you actually laughing right now, Choi Hana?!”

“I’m sorry, really, but- “, Hana managed to calm down, pressing a hand onto her stomach and breathing out, “I can’t believe you’re really jealous, I have never seen you this way, Hyunggu.”

Surprise was now displayed on Hyunggu’s face. Oh. Well. He hadn’t really thought about that. It was true though, he had never been the jealous type. Hana was beautiful and popular, of course boys had hit on her before, but he just… had never really cared. Hana was his girlfriend and he trusted her, so why be jealous?

But something about this new boy had caught him off guard. Something about his dark eyes and full eyelashes, his perfectly shaped nose and lips, the broad shoulders, it had ticked something off inside of Hyunggu he wasn’t quite able to grasp yet.

For a while he just stared at Hana, then he crossed his arms and tried to look for words to say. Hana was quicker, though.

“Don’t worry, I think it’s cute. Actually”, she looked around for a second, making sure no teacher was around and took a step forward then, making them stand toe to toe, “I think it’s pretty hot”, she smirked up at him and Hyunggu felt his face turn red. Quickly he adverted his eyes and cleared his throat, pulling a hand through his hair.

“Well, uh, I guess that’s better than getting mad at me for being jealous”, he said, coughing, “speaking of mad”, he decided to change the topic, “weren’t you mad at me just an hour ago?”

Hana opened her mouth, but quickly shut it again, thinking. Yes, hadn’t she been mad?

“Oh. Well, I guess you’re right. But I honestly can’t even remember why anymore”, her eyes drifted to their classroom where she could see Yuto talking to some of the boys now, Wooseok included.

“I guess the new boy’s beauty just blew away all that anger”, she sighed, quickly looking over at Hyunggu again, who was looking at her with his mouth basically dropped to the floor. She started laughing and Hyunggu shook his head, his lips showing signs of a smile now.

“Aren’t you a bad girl, Choi Hana”, he pulled her into a hug, pressing a kiss on her forehead. It was when he placed his chin on top of her head that he looked inside the classroom as well, no intention of seeing anything in particular, he somehow locked eyes with the new guy.

Yuto’s gaze had a question in it Hyunggu couldn’t quite figure out. Dark brown eyes almost drew Hyunggu in, almost made him fall to the ground, right into the dirt of the cruel world, but Hyunggu managed to keep himself from falling, managed to catch himself.

He wasn’t so sure Yuto could say the same.


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> three months have passed and things start to get complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains slight homophobia.

_Three Months Later_

It was the first basketball game of this year. Hana sat in the second row, Chaeyoung on her right, Jisoo on her left. They held a big sign that cheered on Hyunggu, Wooseok and Yuto.

“Excuse me”, they heard a voice to their right and Hana’s eyes widened.

“Jinho oppa!”, she said, watching as he dropped down next to Chaeyoung.

“Hey girls”, he smiled at them, taking off his gloves and putting them into the pocket of his coat, “did I miss anything already?”, he asked, raising his brows. The girls simultaneously shook their heads.

“Most of the boys are still warming up. I haven’t seen Hyunggu or Yuto yet, though”, Chaeyoung craned her neck, looking for said boys, but there still was no sign of them.

“Ah, Yuto is the new guy, right? Hongseok mentioned him to me a few times”, Jinho’s eyes scanned the field for his friends, seeing Shinwon doing stretches with Changgu, as Yanan ran some rounds around the field. A smile appeared on Jinho’s lips as he saw his old friend and senior Minhyuk standing at the side, holding a clipboard and talking to Hongseok.

“Oh, there they are!”, Jisoo pointed to the other side of the hall where Yuto came out of the side door that lead to the back of the school, followed by Hyunggu. Their faces seemed serious. A weird contrast to the smile Hyunggu had given Hana just a couple hours before.

To be fair, it had taken those two quite some weeks to get along, but it had been three months since that first day Yuto had met them and they all had come to learn what a great person Yuto was.

Hana frowned as she watched the two boys awkwardly walking over to the rest of the team, Wooseok standing between them. Hongseok, the team’s captain, started to speak to them and they all followed his every word.

“What’s up with those two?”, Chaeyoung leaned in closer to Hana, who started chewing on her bottom lip in deep thought. Was this about her? After all she had walked home with Yuto yesterday and only called Hyunggu after she had decided to let Yuto walk her home. But no, Hyunggu was cool with them being friends, he had said so many times before.

“No idea”, Hana finally replied, eyes still locked on her boyfriend who was looking more distressed than he probably should before an important game.

“Ah, I am sure everything is fine”, Jinho assured them stretching his arm out to pat Hana’s shoulder. The young girl nodded, giving Jinho a smile she hoped looked sincere.

Jinho had graduated last year and he had always been a great friend of Hyunggu’s. He was now attending college with Hwitaek, the other member of their friend group that had already graduated.

“Where is Hwitaek oppa, by the way?”, Jisoo asked curiously, looking over at Jinho.

“Hwitaek? He had to go home today, it’s his mum’s birthday.”

“Did Hyojong oppa go with him?”, Hana looked at Chaeyoung in horror, while Jinho opened his mouth, his face showing signs of discomfort before he cleared his throat.

“Uh, I- I don’t know. Maybe he did”, quickly he turned away again, scratching his neck. Hana pinched Chaeyoung’s thigh, making her friend twitch.

“What? Can I not even ask about it? Jeez, everyone knows they’re gay, alright?”, Hana squeezed her eyes together, hoping Jinho hadn’t heard her.

“Yeah, but not everyone is as cool with it as we are, Chaeyoungie”, Hana explained to her, biting her lip, inconspicuously looking over at Jinho again, who was now typing something on his phone.

“Do you mean Jinho oppa still has a problem with it?”, Jisoo whispered on Hana’s other side, eyes widened a little. Hana sighed, lifting her shoulders.

“I don’t know, honestly. Maybe he has, maybe he hasn’t. But judging by the way he just reacted”, giving Jisoo a meaningful look, her friend slowly nodded, sitting back the way she did before, fumbling with the lose string of her jacket.

A few minutes later the game started, and the three girls got up, holding up their sign and cheering on their friends. Hana had never been a fan of basketball, but once Hyunggu had decided to join their years team with Wooseok, she had started to read a little bit about it and, of course, attend all of his games.

Normally, she would try to understand the moves of the team and answer all kinds of questions her friends asked her, but today it was Jinho who answered all the questions as Hana was too busy worrying about what Hyunggu and Yuto had talked about that had caused them to look so awkward.

Hana followed Hyunggu’s every move and almost gasped out loud when she saw him gracefully dodge a member of the other team and passing the ball to Shinwon in the same movement.

“Ah, Hyunggu-ya!”, Jisoo yelled, cheering loud with a grin on her face. Shinwon then proceeded to score the goal and they all cheered even louder. It struck Hana once again that her boyfriend was capable of forgetting his issues in moments like these, moments in which he actually needed to be focused. It was one of his many character traits Hana envied deeply.

Getting her head back to the game, she now watched as the opponent team tried to take the upper hand again, but Hongseok was too quick for them, making an elegant swirl, before storming ahead, passing the ball to Yuto, who now scored their next goal. Loud cheers erupted, Hana and Chaeyoung hugged and Jinho gave the girls high fives. But the game continued right away, leading to the other team scoring two goals, which now lead to them to be tied.

“You can do it!”, Hana shouted, holding the sign up higher with the help of Jisoo and Chaeyoung, hoping that her shout of encouragement would somehow motivate the boys. Something strange happened after that, or at least Hana _thought _it happened because it was over as soon as it had happened.

Right after her shout, she had caught Hongseok’s gaze, feeling his eyes burn into her, as he smiled a smile, she couldn’t really assign to any emotion she had ever seen on Hongseok’s face.

But yeah, it was gone as fast as it had come, leaving Hana startled for a second, blinking at the spot Hongseok had just stood at, now being long gone, shooting forward to score their third goal, leaving them at nine to six.

Whenever their team won, Hongseok would go and buy them all something delicious to eat right before they continued to go to Yanan’s place and, well, celebrate their victory. Girlfriends of players were also allowed at the little dinner, and so Hana was sitting next to Hyunggu, his arm around her shoulder, eagerly chatting with Hayoung, Changgu’s girlfriend, who was in the other third year class.

“Well, boys, we outdid ourselves today. I’m proud of us!”, Hongseok smiled at all of them, raising his glass (which was of course filled with soda as they were out and…underage) and taking a big sip of it once the rest of the team had keenly said their thanks.

“Hyunggu?”, Hana turned to her boyfriend, head tilted a little bit to the side. Their eyes met and Hyunggu smiled, stroking the back of Hana’s head.

“Yes?”

“What did you and Yuto talk about before the game? You looked so distressed when you got back into the gym”, Hana hoped she wasn’t stepping over any lines here. Judging by the way Hyunggu’s face fell though, she kind of figured she had.

“It was nothing, don’t worry”, he pulled back his arm, the arm that had been around her shoulder before and pressed his lips together as he turned his body a little, making room for his arm between them. Hana’s heart hurt a little and it was obvious he was lying to her.

“Right. It’s nothing, but you stop touching me the minute I mention it? Do you think I’m stupid?”, Hana said, hurt in her voice. Hyunggu’s grip around his glass tightened, knuckles turning white.

“Hana, please. I don’t wanna fight with you in front of the team.”

One could say what Hana did next was the exact opposite of what she should have done, but people need to make mistakes sometimes.

“Oh, really? You don’t wanna fight because of something that is apparently nothing?”, Hana purposely spoke louder, making the rest of the table fall quiet. Hyunggu’s face darkened now and he looked at Hana with strict eyes.

“Hana”, he just said, hoping the tone in his voice would be enough to make her stop. It wasn’t. Hana shook her head, laughing loudly.

“You can kiss my ass for all I care, Kang Hyunggu”, she almost spit out, getting up from her chair, grabbing her coat and walking out of the restaurant as fast as her feet could carry her.

A few minutes later she had walked enough to not see the restaurant anymore. She paused in her steps and looked up at the sky, feeling something wet hit her face.

“Great”, she sighed, putting the hood of her coat over her head, but quickly realizing that this wasn’t even close to a shelter from the rain.

Suddenly Hana felt like crying. Her reaction had been way too strong, she _knew _that. But Hyunggu lying to her face without any hesitation – it had triggered something inside of her she hadn’t known was even there.

There was no escaping those thoughts, though, not after these last three months of Hyunggu making up excuses as to why he couldn’t hang out, as to what had caused him to be late once again when he finally did decide to hang out with her. It had gotten better in the past two weeks, she had to admit that, but right now, when he had decided to lie again, Hana just hadn’t been able to hold it in anymore.

She only noticed that there was no rain falling down on her when she raised her head and saw rain pouring down everywhere around her.

“Thought you might need that”, she heard a voice next to her and she almost stumbled, startled.

“Wha-“, it was Hyunggu, holding an umbrella above of both their heads, woefully smiling down at her.

“I’m sorry”, he then continued to say, startling Hana even more, “I know I haven’t been the best boyfriend these past few months, I just… I went through some stuff that I kind of wanted to figure out on my own. I know I should have told you that, I know that you would have understood. But instead I chose to be a dickhead and treated you in a way I shouldn’t have”, he sighed, biting his lip, averting his eyes, looking at the ground now.

Hana’s heart started to hurt again that night and she reached for Hyunggu’s hand, giving it a loving squeeze.

“Hyunggu-“, she started, but was quickly interrupted by Hyunggu again.

“No, please. Hana, I have been horrible to you. And I tried, I really tried to be what you need, what you _deserve_. But I feel overwhelmed, I feel as if I can’t be that person for you anymore.”

It took Hana a few seconds before it clicked.

“Hana, you know I love you. And this might come too sudden and without enough explanation, but I think I need some real alone time. Without having to worry about hurting you. Without feeling like I owe anyone anything”, Hyunggu was still avoiding her eyes, still talking to the floor instead of her face and Hana didn’t know what hurt her more the words he spoke or the fact he couldn’t even look at her while saying them.

“I think it’s best if we just… pause it.”

“Don’t”, Hana finally managed to bring out a word even though her throat felt as if someone had laced it up.

“Don’t say you want to pause it when in reality we both know you don’t want a pause but an end”, her hand started to shake, just as the rest of her body.

“Look at me, Hyunggu. You owe it to look me in the eyes while breaking up with me”, everything inside of Hana screamed while she said those words.

And everything screamed even louder, wounded her even more, when Hyunggu finally looked at her again, with eyes full of tears, with so much pain written all over his face, Hana started crying herself.

“I’m so sorry, Hana. I really am”, he let the tears fall, grabbing Hana’s hand again, grabbing it with the hand she had just let go of.

She knew he was telling the truth. She could read it in his face, his eyes. She could feel it in his touch.

“Please don’t leave me”, her lips were trembling, and the words came out in a breathy sob. Tears kept streaming down her face and Hyunggu reached for it, wiping them away as good as he could while crying himself.

“I’m sorry, Hana. I’m so sorry”, he kept repeating this one sentence, the only one he thought was the right thing to say and still not enough. Nothing was enough to make this alright, to make Hana smile again.

“Don’t do this, Hyunggu, please”, she sobbed again, now herself staring at the floor instead of him, physically not capable of looking at him.

When Hyunggu pulled her into a hug, still whispering “I’m sorry” into her ear, kissing the top of her head and letting her sob into his freshly washed shirt, she was still trying to understand what was happening. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

Hana arrived at home an hour later, Hyunggu had dropped her off, kissing her cheek goodbye, before walking away. She had watched him, waited until he was out of sight until she went inside, ignoring the calls of her parents and walking straight to her own room, shutting the door behind her and leaning against it.

Hyunggu’s face appeared in front of her eyes again, his smile, his eyes, everything about him she loved so much it literally tore her apart. Especially now when she knew she couldn’t go to school the next day, kissing his cheek, cuddling to his side.

Tears started falling again and she pressed her hand onto her mouth to prevent a sob from coming out.

All of this didn’t seem real. It seemed too serious, too _final._ As if there was no turning back, as if she had lost him forever. Had lost the love of her god damn life without even really understanding why. He needed time for himself, okay. She could give him that! But coming up with something as insincere as suggesting a break when all that had been over his face was wanting to get out as soon as possible as much as it might hurt? No, that certainly wasn’t it.

Hana tried to come back to her senses, taking further steps into her room and looking around, seeing too many things that reminded her of Hyunggu.

“Fuck this”, she finally said, throwing her coat on the chair in front of her desk and grabbing her phone from the back pocket of her pants, seeing that Jisoo and Chaeyoung had both texted her, saying that the party at Yanan’s was in full bloom and that she should get her ass there if she didn’t want to miss the party of the year.

** _Is Hyunggu there?_ **

She texted to both her friends in their group chat, nibbling on her nail as she waited for a response.

_Chaeyoung: Is he not with you?_

**Jisoo:** **I haven’t seen him yet**

Chewing on her bottom lip, Hana thought hard about what to do. Should she just go to the party she was sure she would find alcohol at? Maybe getting drunk was exactly what she needed. She needed something to forget this pain, but was it really worth getting scolded by her parents for probably the rest of her life if she got caught?

She sat down on her bed, pulling a hand through her hair and putting the phone down next to her. The minute she didn’t have anything in her hand to distract her, Hyunggu came back flying into her mind, his beautiful laugh, his cute whiskers when he smiled, his adorable whining when he didn’t get his way, the way he looked when he was feeling pleasure.

The decision was basically made by itself.

** _I’ll be there in twenty_ **

** **

** **

Hyunggu sat on one of the swing sets in the closest park, crying into the palms of his hands.

He hated himself more and more with every second that passed.

Doing this to Hana, his best friend, the girl he thought he would spend the rest of his life with – it was the worst thing he ever did.

And yet, a part of him felt so god damn relieved, felt free even. That made him hate himself even more.

The look on her face, her quiet begging, the sobs escaping her. Hyunggu felt like the biggest pile of trash on planet earth.

What hurt even more than knowing that he had done this to her, had made her cry, was that he couldn’t even tell her the real reason why he had done it. But, if he was honest to himself, he wasn’t so sure he was ready to say it out loud, especially to her. It would have just killed her even more, would have just turned the knife inside her heart. And, yeah, he was not gonna do that. Not yet at least.

There wasn’t much time left to feel like garbage though because only about an hour after he had decided to take a walk around the park and maybe understand his thoughts better, he got a call from a very worried sounding Wooseok.

“Hyunggu-ya, you might want to come to Yanan’s after all”, he said and Hyunggu could literally feel the tension building up inside of him, around him.

“Why?”, he asked, a bad feeling spreading throughout his body.

“Well, Hana is here and she, uh, she kind of, well, tried to kiss me.”

Hyunggu closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Hyunggu, I swear to god I was not encouraging it at all!”

“I know, Wooseokie. I know. I’ll be there as fast as I can. Just…get her water”, with that Hyunggu hung up, turned around and practically run to Yanan’s house.

Hyunggu arrived at the house about fifteen minutes later, out of breath and sweaty, but he didn’t care. He looked around the packed living room and saw what he had feared the most. There she was, Choi Hana, standing on the living room table, school uniform just half heartedly on, blazer tossed to the side, shirt unbuttoned far enough to catch glimpse of a baby pink bra. Hyunggu swore under his breath, basically running to the sight, now seeing Wooseok as well as Changgu trying to get her down. Hyunggu wondered where Chaeyoung and Jisoo might be but tossed that thought aside and stepped in front of the table, anger very visibly on his face.

“Hyunggu-ya! Thank god, I don’t know what has gotten into her!”, Wooseok said, an extra apologetic look on his face as he still remembered the moment Hana had tried to kiss him, had succeeded even, pressing their lips together before Wooseok had even understood what was happening.

“Hyunggu-ya!”, Hana spotted him, pointing at him now and letting out a laugh, before jumping down from the table, causing her shirt to slip down her shoulder.

“Hana, what are you-“, but Hyunggu couldn’t finish because Hana basically jumped on him, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing their lips together. Hyunggu didn’t know how to react for a second, but then he softly pushed her off of him, leaving her with an expression Hyunggu was sure he would never ever be able to forget. In the blink of an eye, though, the hurt Hana disappeared and made room for a whole different Hana, one Hyunggu had never seen before.

“Ah, right. I forgot. You broke up with me”, Hana pulled away, arms now hanging down her body, as her face turned more bitter with every step she took back, finally leaving her on the table again. She bent down, grabbing the drink out of Changgu’s hands.

“Hana!”, Changgu said, eyes wide, but Hana didn’t listen, instead she gulped down the whole cup in one go and threw it down on the ground once it was empty.

“Yeah, you broke up with me, isn’t that too funny? _You _breaking up with _me_? I feel like that’s a bad joke”, she laughed out loud again, placing her hands on her hips.

Hyunggu felt that something bad was coming and he was almost about to get her off that table, when he saw something, or more someone, behind her, he had not exactly been prepared for.

Yuto had made his way through the crowd, now standing behind Hana, but his and Hyunggu’s eyes met nevertheless.

“Hana, please come down. I’m sorry you two broke up but this is in no way helpful”, Changgu pleaded, holding out his hand to help the girl down. But Hana ignored him.

“You breaking up with me when I had so much more reason to”, she laughed again, looking around the crowd, “isn’t it too funny? After all he was the one who never wanted to sleep with me!”

Hyunggu’s eyes snapped from Yuto to Hana and he felt the air being kicked out of his lungs.

“He, who never even wanted to touch me! He, who just let me suck him off once! You hear that? Once! Tell me, Hyunggu-ya, are you gay?”, someone else came up behind Hana now, someone with an expression ready to kill if he had to.

“Hana-ya. It’s enough”, it was Hwitaek, not only their senior, but also Hana’s tutor for the past two years, who finally got her to stop talking.

The room had fallen into complete silence and Hyunggu felt heat inside of him, felt his cheeks burning, probably as red as humanly possible. He felt eyes on him, many eyes. And most importantly he saw eyes on him, one pair of eyes in particular he wished hadn’t been here.

Yuto was looking at him with eyes carrying an emotion Hyunggu wasn’t too sure he could understand. But alone the fact Yuto was here, hearing the words Hana had said was enough for Hyunggu to turn around on his heel and run out, leaving this fucking house and everyone inside it behind him.


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana reflects on last nights actions and her parents find out she and Hyunggu broke up. Also, she has a new tutor.

When Hana woke up the next morning the first thing she noticed was the god awful smell of vomit filling her nose. The next thing she noticed was that she wasn’t in her own room at home, but a room she only slowly recognised as Yanan’s guest room on the first floor. There was a bucket next to her on the floor – the source of the smell she wished to never have to smell again.

“Fuck”, she mumbled, pulling a hand through her hair as she slowly sat up on the bed, eyeing her surroundings. Only now she realised that there were other people laying on the floor and it didn’t take her long to recognize her two best friends all cuddled up on a thin blanket still fully dressed.

Chaeyoung was holding on to Jisoo’s waist and Jisoo’s hands were clasped around Chaeyoung’s and Hana would have probably thought this was cute, if she only didn’t have this horrible headache suddenly breaking down onto her.

As fast as her sore body let her, she got up from the bed, tip toing her way to the door and opening it, suddenly being met with the smell of something cooking. She sniffed, looking around the hallway but seeing no one.

After closing the door behind her, she continued her journey downstairs, now hearing faint voices in the distance. Voices that sounded way too chipper for a morning after a wild ass party.

Hana stopped in her step as if she had been burned. The party! The whole night!

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck!”, she yelled out, dropping down onto one of the stairs, face buried in her hands. Steps approached her in a quick manner and soon she was surrounded by three boys, all of them armed with some kind of kitchen utensil.

“What happened?”, Shinwon asked looking at Hana in horror. Next to him were Yanan and Changgu, both not looking any less confused and shocked.

“I happened!”, Hana answered, looking up, face as red as a perfectly ripe tomato.

The boys’ faces relaxed a little bit, but Changgu started chewing on his bottom lip and eyed her with caution.

“So, you remember?”, he asked then and Hana nodded, her face back to being buried in her small hands.

Changgu exchanged looks with his two friends, before he knelt down so he was the same height as Hana.

“Hey, listen. Yeah, it wasn’t cool, the things you said to Hyunggu. But you were drunk and hurting, I am sure everyone can kind of understand where you were coming from.”

Hana heard those words and started shaking her head, first just slowly but more rapidly as the seconds passed.

“No! No, there is nothing to understand! Of course I was hurting, I still am, but that still does not give me the right to say something like that, especially in front of all those people, in front of his _friends, _his s_eniors! _Fuck, especially in front of Hwitaek oppa, he must hate me!”

There was no denying that her accusing her (ex-)boyfriend of being gay, simply because he wanted to wait with having sex in front of everyone (especially her tutor who, by the way, was indeed gay) was a pretty shitty move. Shitty and ignorant and just simply disrespectful.

“Hana-ya, you should eat something. We made hangover soup!”, Yanan tried to encourage Hana to get up and normally he would have probably succeeded, but today it was no use. Today, Hana started to sob into her own hands, Changgu next to her, arm around her shoulder. Today, Yanan could just go back to the kitchen alone with Shinwon and hope Hana would be okay.

About twenty minutes later, Changgu had somehow convinced Hana to eat at least a little bit of the soup they had made, and so Hana was seated next to the older boy, slowly sipping her soup.

The silence that filled the room left everyone awkwardly shifting on their seats, but no one dared to say something. Even Shinwon stayed quiet, which was pretty unusual for the tall boy.

Changgu almost sighed in relief when he heard his phone ring and excused himself, leaving the table to get his phone from his jacket on the couch.

“You already cleaned the place?”, he heard Wooseok’s voice on the other side and rolled his eyes.

“Not everything. We left you guys some things, you know, just to be fair. Where are you?”

Wooseok cleared his throat.

“I’m at Hyunggu’s”, he said and Changgu immediately turned around, looking at Hana, but she was still silently eating her soup.

“How is he?”, Changgu asked then, sitting down on the couch and letting his gaze wander through the room. They had cleaned most of the mess that had been made the night before, sadly only the literal one, not the one you couldn’t touch with your bare hands.

“Well”, Wooseok paused and Changgu could imagine him looking at a sleeping Hyunggu, thinking about what exactly to say, “he finally fell asleep after hours and hours of crying. I had to literally drag him to bed so he would even consider sleeping”, now there was a sigh escaping Wooseok, “what the hell was going on with Hana, I have never seen her like this.”

Changgu chewed on his lip, letting the memories of last night pass his mind again.

“I am pretty sure she has never seen herself like this as well. She feels terrible. Like, she just broke down on the stairs crying.”

“Oh, so she is still with you?”, Wooseok sounded surprised.

“Yeah, Hwitaek hyung got her to calm down and brought her to the guest room on the first floor.”

It was silent for a short while, then Changgu heard Wooseok sighing once again.

“I will come by and help you clean. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring Hyunggu if she is still there.”

“Yeah. I don’t think so either.”

Hana was sure she would probably never recover from the shame she felt.

But she was also sure that she would never ever forgive herself for what she had said to Hyunggu, for the way she had spat at him with words so harsh.

For a while, that day after the party, she even considered telling her parents she was sick so she wouldn’t have to go to school on Monday, but she knew her parents would literally drag her to the next hospital if she only did so much as cough in front of them.

Her heart hurt thinking about how Hyunggu must feel. She still loved him, of course she did, and she had done this horrible thing to him and couldn’t bring up the courage to call him and apologise for it. She was a coward, that was for sure.

Sitting on her own bed the evening before school started again, Hana scrolled through her old messages with Hyunggu and typed a message here and there, just to delete it again. What was she even supposed to say? That she was sorry? That she was a terrible person? All of that was true, but what would it change? Literally nothing.

She almost jumped out of her skin when she felt a vibration in her hand, seeing that she had gotten a new message and for a second she thought it was from Hyunggu, but (and she didn’t know which one was worse) as it turned out it was from Hwitaek.

Her heart started beating so fast, she was sure it was gonna jump out and run away any second.

With a heavy feeling, she opened up his message and started reading.

_Hi, Hana. I hope you aren’t beating yourself up too much. What you said wasn’t okay, but I am sure you know that by now. I won’t say I’m not sad and disappointed, but I guess I kind of understand what you were trying to do. Still, don’t think that was the best way to communicate your insecurities with Hyunggu. But that is not the reason I’m texting you. Basically, and I swear this has nothing to do with what happened, I can’t be your tutor anymore. Finals are coming up and they are ripping me apart already. I asked Hongseok if he could take over and he said he would do it. I am sorry, Hana. I hope you understand._

Amazing. Wonderful.

Hana felt a strange ache in her chest, trying her hardest to hold back the tears that wanted to fall. Hwitaek might have said that it wasn’t because of what had happened, but she still felt like it did. She had caused this, all of this. The break up with Hyunggu (something she, of course, still had trouble thinking about), the outburst at the party and now this. It all came together because she simply couldn’t be what Hyunggu needed. Because she wasn’t worthy of being loved by this wonderful human being, by this boy who had the whole universe in his eyes, if not more. The boy that reassembled the sun when he smiled, the boy she would try to catch all the stars for.

She didn’t know if and what she should respond, so she didn’t. Instead she threw her phone on her bed and stood up, making her way downstairs to get some dinner.

Downstairs, she met her mum who was sitting at the counter, typing away on her laptop.

“Ah, hey honey, there are still left overs in the fridge”, the woman said, a smile on her lips as she looked up at her daughter. Choi Lian wasn’t blind, though. She saw how sad her daughter looked, how devastated. Her whole body seemed to scream in pain, and Lian couldn’t do anything but to get up from her chair, meeting her daughter half way and putting her hands on the young girls shoulders.

“What’s the matter?” she asked eyebrows quirked at Hana. The latter tried to avoid her mother’s gaze as good as she could – but there was no use.

“It’s nothing”, she then decided to say, leading to her mother shaking her head and leaving out a snort.

“Don’t lie to me. Is everything okay with Hyunggu?” of course that was the first thing she had to ask. Hana shook off her mother’s hands and continued her walk to the fridge.

“I am not in the mood to talk about it”, it was a risky move, especially with her mum, but at this point Hana was just tired. It had only been a couple of days since Hyunggu had ended their relationship, very likely for good, and she was definitely not in the mood to disappoint yet another person that she loved. Because there was no way around her mother being disappointed that Hyunggu had broken up with her. Her mother would definitely put the blame on Hana alone because, as she has stated many times before, there was no one quite like Hyunggu, no one as bright and wonderful, as handsome and sweet as him.

Hana hated that she was right about all of that. There was no one like him and Hana was pretty sure she could never ever find someone like him again.

“Choi Hana, how dare you talk to your mother like that?” her mother was obviously pissed at how Hana had responded, but if Hana was honest there wasn’t anything she could do about it, anything she wanted to do about it. And so she just turned around, food in her hands and closed the fridge, bowing down to her mum and mumbling a quick ‘sorry’, before walking to the microwave to heat up the left overs.

Lian was at a loss for words.

“Honey, please talk to me. Did you and Hyunggu fight?” Hana knew she only meant well, but it didn’t change the fact that Hana didn’t wanna talk about it, that she would rather rip out her toenails than talk about Hyunggu now.

“Mum, I already told you. I am not in the mood to talk about it. Maybe later, but please, please… let me be”, Hana hoped that her mouther would understand and not bring up the topic again and for some reason god heard her prayers and her mother slowly nodded, sitting back down, not without chewing her bottom lip and giving Hana a side look full of worry.

Not talking to her mum turned out to be a mistake because for some reason Hyunggu had already decided to tell his parents that they had broken up which basically translated to Hana’s parents now knowing too.

Monday morning, because of that, turned out to be even more horrible than Hana had expected it to be, meaning that not only was she forced to see Hyunggu again after the horrible things she had said, but she was also forced to listen to her parents nag at her for letting Hyunggu go when he was “the best thing that had ever happened to her”.

She was eighteen for crying out loud, who said there wasn’t someone else going to come around and be better than him?

Yeah, Hana didn’t buy that either.

“And you are sure you didn’t say anything to upset him? You know he gets sensitive sometimes”, her mother said from the passenger seat as her dad was driving. He had not really said anything aside from how disappointed he was since Hyunggu was surely gonna make a big name out of himself one day and that Hana could have definitely used a husband like that. It was just delightful.

“I don’t know, mum, how often do I have to tell you?”, Hana looked out of the window, watching the buildings pass her in a fast motion, watching the world outside wishing she was out there instead of in this god damn car

Still, when she _did _got out of it, she kind of wished she could go back in. The school had never looked this big and frightening before, not even on her first day. But that had probably been the case, so Hana concluded, because of Hyunggu.

Sighing, Hana started her literal walk of shame to school, hoping she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew until she was at her class where she literally _had_ to prepared for this.

But the spirits were not in her favour today, making Wooseok appear around the corner the next second, stopping in his step as he saw Hana. Normally they would greet each other with smiles and waving, but now Hana felt as if the whole world was watching and expecting something of her.

First of all, she had tried to _kiss _him. She even succeeded for a bit. Him, who was Hyunggu’s best friend. It was more than just a little humiliating.

Biting down on her lip, she looked at Wooseok with unsure eyes, hoping he would understand what she was trying to signal him. For the first time on this day, she wasn’t let down.

Wooseok put a small smile on his lips, walking towards her now and only stopping when he reached the space next to her.

“Good morning, drunky”, he said with a grin and Hana felt like she could finally breathe again. Seeing Wooseok like this, not mad and awkward almost made it bearable to go inside.

“Good morning”, she said back now, giving him a relieved smile.

“You ready to go in?” his eyes searched for hers and Hana felt her heart aching at the thought of having to see Hyunggu, but she nodded anyways not letting the smile fade away from her lips.

Together the both eighteen-year olds made their way into the school, climbing up the stairs to their class, leaving the first graders behind them and finding their own classroom on the second floor. At this point Hana was scared her heart would suddenly stop beating, that a heart attack would suddenly kill her, but in the end she set her foot into the classroom, eyes automatically shifting to the seat she knew Wooseok would make his way to so he could sit down beside it, as he always did – just that today this seat was taken.

Wooseok came to a sudden halt next to Hana and Hana, even though not really knowing why, stopped as well.

It was hard to take her eyes of Hyunggu, hard to let go of the only thing she had left of him, the only thing she was allowed to do, but she finally made it, finally looked at Wooseok who was blinking in confusion.

There, on his regular seat, sat Yuto. He and Hyunggu were talking about something and hadn’t even noticed Wooseok and Hana coming in. It didn’t take to know Wooseok well to see the hurt in his eyes, hurt Hana had to admit she was confused about it.

“Wooseok, are you okay?”, she asked, putting her hand on his arm and Wooseok nodded, his face stiffening. He definitely wasn’t okay. Hana opened her mouth again to ask him if he wanted to sit next to her – after all that was Yuto’s usual spot, but Wooseok did not give her the chance.

Instead he started walking towards his seat, coming to a stop when he arrived right next to Yuto.

“Aren’t you in the wrong seat?”, Wooseok said and Hana felt herself getting anxious at this scene. This did not make any sense. Why was he so upset, so _hurt _by Yuto sitting on that chair? Hana was torn between saying something, silently going to her seat or just standing where she stood right now and not dare to move.

“Oh, hey, Wooseokie. I was just sitting here until you came I can-“

“Yeah sure. Spare me this bullshit. You were gonna ask me to sit here, weren’t you?” Wooseok’s tone made Hana’s insides tingle in a very uncomfortable way. Something was wrong here, something was absolutely and totally wrong and Hana had no idea what it was.

“Wooseok-ah, what’s wrong?”, Hyunggu said now and Hana had not been prepared to hear his voice. And even though it really hadn’t been that long since she had last heard it, even though then his words had not been the greatest to hear, her heart started beating faster and the ache was back, this horrible shameful ache that she had succeeded to shove to the far end of her brain, but here it was again, almost destroying her inside.

And she knew it was all because of herself.

“What’s wrong?”, Wooseok laughs bitterly.

“What is wrong is that you ditched me for him on the weekend already, telling me you “don’t wanna see anyone” just for me to see you get on a bus with Mr. best-friend-stealing-pants, looking like you are having the time of your life when twelve hours before you were literally sobbing on my shoulder and now I see him sitting on my seat, _my _seat, Hyunggu. What are you gonna do? Drop everything in your life for _him_? Is that why you left Hana too, huh?”

Hyunggu’s face fell, his eyes widening and his cheeks flushing red. Yuto was about to jump out of his seat, already getting prepared to break Wooseok’s bones if he had to.

And that was the moment Hana finally came back to her senses, basically flying to Wooseok’s side, grabbing his arm.

“Stop, Wooseok”, she said, eyes set on the tall boy who was breathing hard.

Everyone in the room was staring at them and Hana wished Chaeyoung and Jisoo were here already, but they of course had to be late again.

“Don’t do this, don’t you think the weekend was enough drama for everyone? Hyunggu is your best friend, nothing is gonna change that, stop this nonsense, Wooseok-ah”, Hana whispered to him, hoping the other people in the room wouldn’t hear her.

She clearly felt Hyunggu and Yuto’s eyes on her and her cheeks started burning.

Not knowing how she managed to do it, she lifted her chin, turning her head to look at Yuto.

“Come, let’s sit at our table”, she let go off Wooseok’s arm just so she could grab for Yuto’s hand and lead him to their table a row behind Wooseok and Hyunggu.

No one made a sound and when Wooseok sat down he didn’t even look at Hyunggu.

Something in Hana felt as if taking Yuto away from Hyunggu might have been the wrong move. But she didn’t let that feeling get the best of her.

Being in the same room as Hyunggu and not being able to talk to him was the hardest thing Hana ever had to do. It wasn’t not like she couldn’t talk to him it was just that she knew she shouldn’t. It would be a privilege to talk to Hyunggu and she surely did not deserve that.

It was lunch time when Hana sat at a different table than usual (a table as far from Hyunggu as possible), Chaeyoung sleeping on Jisoo’s shoulder and Jisoo eating her sandwich, when Hana finally let out the sigh, she didn’t know she was holding.

“I need to talk to him, don’t I?”, her eyes darted to her friends and Chaeyoung opened on of her eyes, the other still shut.

“Wow, how did you come to that conclusion?”, the sarcasm lead to Hana grimacing.

“Shut up. It’s just that-“

“Yeah, yeah, we know. You think you don’t “deserve” to talk to him”, Jisoo rolled her eyes, putting the word “deserve” into quotations with her fingers.

“That’s bullshit. You were together for, how long? Basically forever. What you did was fucking awful, Hana. And it’s not about what you think you don’t deserve but about what he _does_ deserve and that is an apology.”

Hana knew that Jisoo was right and that she should have apologized literally the second after she had said what she said, but she also knew that she would have neither meant it back then nor would Hyunggu have listened to her.

“Just talk to him after school. You know you have to”, Chaeyoung yawned, getting her head of Jisoo’s shoulder, stretching her arms above her head.

“Yeah, I think I will”, Hana sighed again, something she apparently did a lot that day, and leaned back in her seat, avoiding the table three rows away from them. She didn’t know where Wooseok is, but she could clearly see the back of Hyunggu’s head and Yuto’s side profile, next to Changgu, Shinwon, Yanan and Hongseok.

“Don’t you have to meet Hui oppa? It’s Monday”, Jisoo finished her sandwich and cleaned her hands with one of the white napkins she brought from the counter, looking at Hana.

“Oh. Well, no. He, uh, he kind of told me he can’t be my teacher anymore because of finals”, Hana had almost forgotten about that issue, had stored it somewhere deep inside her mind as something she would deal with once she was ready.

“Wait, what? When did he do that? Before or after, uh, you know?”, Chaeyoung put her arms back on the table, nibbling on a lose string of her sleeve.

“After”, Hana pressed her lips together, sinking lower in her chair. Her friends shared a quick look before Jisoo cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry Hana-ya. I’m sure you’ll be able to ace maths even without his help.” They all knew it was a lie and Hana raised her head as well as her eyebrows.

“Right, just like you’re gonna ace English without Donggeun oppa”, Hana replied, crossing her arms and making Jisoo blush.

“So, what are you gonna do? Get a new tutor?”, Chaeyoung continued the conversation and Hana chewed on her bottom lip, remembering Hwitaek’s text from the other day.

“I kind of already have one”, was what she finally said, now breaking the promise to herself to not look at Hyunggu’s table.

“Hui oppa asked Hongseok oppa to take over and he apparently said yes.”

There was a weird silence filling their table now, a strange occasion as they were not alone in the room. But Hana clearly felt the mood changing and saw the faces her two friends were now making, looking at her as if she had just said the most horrifying thing they had ever heard.

“What are you saying?”, Jisoo leaned forward, her nose dangerously close to Hana’s face. Hana grimaced again, sitting back up and shrugging now.

“What’s up with you?”, she looked from Jisoo to Chaeyoung and back at the former, still confused about what was going on.

It was Chaeyoung who snorted after a while, letting out a bitter laugh after it.

“Of course, out of every person in this school it is you, the lovesick and heartbroken fool that gets the school’s number one student as her tutor, who not only happens to be smart but also extremely hot. What are the freaking odds?”

Hana needed some time to understand the words Chaeyoung had just said and when she did, she laughed out loud, shaking her head.

“What? Hongseok oppa? Extremely hot? Are you kidding me?”

Jisoo and Chaeyoung shared a quick look (filled with pure disbelief) before both of them cleared their throats and looked back at their friend.

“Well, we know that your world used to be just about Hyunggu, which is fine, but I think now it’s time for you to realise that there are other handsome guys out there, for example Hongseok oppa, or no, _especially_ him”, Jisoo said as calm as she could. Chaeyoung nodded along, watching Hana who seemed to be processing those new informations about someone she had never looked at in this light.

“I don’t see it”, she said after a few seconds, shrugging again. Her friends let out frustrated moans, shaking their heads at her.

And it was in this moment, this moment right there, when Hana was delusional again, not seeing how beautiful Hongseok was with his tanned skin, the dark brown eyes and the body build to break bones, that Jisoo and Chaeyoung silently agreed to a plan. A plan to make Hana not only see how beautiful Yang Hongseok was, but to also make her feel a way she had never felt before.

In other words: It was time for Choi Hana to finally get laid.


	4. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana and Hyunggu talk. Also it's time for Hana and Hongseok's first tutor session. Changgu knows more than he should.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!  
I'm sorry it took so long, but here I am now with another chapter!  
I hope you enjoy!

The good thing was that Hana knew Hyunggu’s way home from school by heart. The bad thing was that she wasn’t exactly sure he would even listen to her.

Anxiously, Hana was standing in front of the playground belonging to the elementary school she used to go to, hands buried in her pockets. It was exactly 2:47 pm, which meant that Hyunggu would get here any second. The wind was blowing around Hana and she shivered, looking around to see if anyone else was around. But the street was empty, almost as if everyone knew what was going to happen here. Hana was thankful, though, because she really didn’t know what she would have done if many people had been around.

As if on cue, Hyunggu now walked around the corner, coming right Hana’s way. Immediately, Hana’s heart started beating faster, her breath stuck in her throat when she saw how the wind blew through his hair making him look beautiful as ever. He hadn’t seen her yet, his gaze stuck on his phone, typing away.

When he was only a few meters away, Hana took all the courage she had left and said his name.

“Hyunggu”, it was quiet and for a second she thought he hadn’t heard her, but then he lifted his head, looking straight into her eyes for a second.

Hana’s heart sank deep down when she saw the look on his face once he had realised who had called for him. He wasn’t happy (not that she was expecting him to be), nor was he even a slight bit relieved to see her waiting for him. A part of her had hoped that he was just as eager to get their fight out of the way and at least try to be friends – but no. Judging by the way he was looking at her now, his eyes full of despair and his body strangely showing off distance, Hana knew that there had only been one person who wanted to fix this - herself.

“I need to get home”, Hyunggu just said.

“I know, I just- I just wanted to talk to you. For a minute, please?”, it was a long shot, she knew that. Hyunggu had every right to not want to talk to her, but she still had to try. Try to make this right.

“What else is there to say, Hana? You said loud and clear what you think of me.”

He looked so angry, so hurt, it broke Hana’s heart even more.

“I didn’t mean what I said, Hyunggu-ya, I really didn’t, you know that”, she tried, but Hyunggu shook his head, a bitter laugh escaping his lips.

“You know, I thought I knew a lot of things. Apparently, though, I was wrong about almost all of them.” His eyes pierced into her’s and for a second Hana thought he would just walk away and leave her alone, but when he didn’t move, she took another chance.

“What I said was horrible. I feel so, so awful. I know, I should have apologised to you right when it happened, but I just- I was just scared to face you, I still am. But we were together for so long, you are my best friend, Hyunggu-ya, and yes, I love you, I still do, but I can respect your decision. If what you need is time alone, I’ll gladly give it to you. But that night I wasn’t ready, I was hurt and angry and I couldn’t understand, and yeah, maybe I still don’t fully get it, but that doesn’t matter, I just want you to be happy, and if you’re not happy with me… so be it”, she stopped, checking if Hyunggu was going to interrupt her, but when she scanned his face, all she saw was sadness, no signs of the earlier anger left.

“I am so, so sorry, Hyunggu. You don’t have to forgive me, I would totally understand if you didn’t, but I just need you to know that I didn’t mean any of what I said. That doesn’t make it okay, I know. Just, I need you to know.”

Once she finished, her heart was hurting more and more with every beat. Hyunggu was staring at her and for the first time in her life, Hana wasn’t sure what he was thinking. She couldn’t predict his answer, couldn’t figure out by looking at him if he was gonna forgive her. Realising this, tears started forming in her eyes and she quickly wiped them away.

Something like a rollercoaster was happening inside Hyunggu. Standing in front of him was his best friend of almost 18 years, basically his whole life. He had loved her for so many years, had held her hand every day for the past 5, and knew her better than anyone else. And yet, when he looked at her now, he felt nothing but guilt, nothing but the strong urge to run away. Yes, he had been angry at her for what she had said, but he had realised that it was right of her to be this upset, he had broken her heart after all without giving her a real reason. But then again, telling her the real reason was off the table.

So, what was he supposed to do? Just act like he was angry and never talk to her again? When in reality he craved to have her back in his life, missed her so much that his chest was hurting just looking at her. Hyunggu just wasn’t sure he could do that, let her back in without her expecting something more, something he couldn’t give her anymore.

“Hana..” he then began, biting his lip and looking down on his feet.

“I need some time. I believe you when you say that you didn’t mean what you said, but that doesn’t just erase the memory of it. Can you give me time to try and forgive you?”

This was more than Hana had hoped for and so she nodded rapidly, almost making Hyunggu smile.

“Of course. Take all the time you need, I’ll be waiting.”

When Hyunggu walked away from Hana then, all he could think about was how disappointed she would be once she found out the real reason, he couldn’t be with her anymore.

Arriving at her first tutoring session with Hongseok, Hana still couldn’t get Hyunggu out of her head. She placed her books on the table of the café she was meeting Hongseok at and took a sip from the iced latte she had ordered for herself. For Hongseok she had gotten an iced americano, hoping he would be alright with that. Hwitaek had always gotten something ridiculously sweet and Hana had always told him that at some point his teeth would fall out.

Not many people where at this café and Hana leaned back in her chair, thoughts trailing back to Hyunggu, when suddenly she heard her phone ring. She took it out of her pocket, seeing that it had just been a message from Jisoo. Without thinking about it (why should she?), she opened the message as she took another sip from her coffee, only to find herself choking on it the next second.

Jisoo had sent her a picture of Hongseok. Shirtless.

“What the hell, Jisoo?!”, she coughed, taking a napkin from the table and wiping her mouth.

Even if she didn’t want to admit it, she couldn’t take her eyes off the picture, off how confident Hongseok was looking into the camera through his mirror, showing off a set of flawless abs. This was _ridiculous_, no one looked this good, this had to be photoshopped.

“Hey, Hana, sorry I’m a little late”, she suddenly heard a voice say and when she looked up, she saw Hongseok arriving at her table, setting down his bag on the free chair next to his. Quickly, she shoved away her phone, almost dropping it to the floor.

Confused, Hongseok looked at her.

“You okay?”, he asked.

“Me? Yeah, sure. Sorry”, her cheeks started burning as she watched Hongseok take a seat in front of her. God damn Jisoo, how was Hana supposed to look at Hongseok now?

“Alright. Well, I have some stuff planned out, Hui hyung told me where you stopped the last time, so let’s just go from there, is that okay?”

“Of course,” Hana smiled at him.

Hongseok looked at her, took in her face, the smile on her rose lips, the dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, her eyes a soft brown and decided not to smile back.

Instead, he took out the material he had prepared and started the tutoring session.

It was just a few minutes after seven, when Hongseok arrived at Yanan’s place. Changgu opened the door and let him in, giving him a curious look.

“How did it go?”, he asked. Hongseok shrugged, letting his bag fall to the floor next to the door.

“Great”, he mumbled, walking straight into the kitchen to grab himself a well-deserved beer.

Changgu followed him (of course, he did, when would he not pry?), stopping at the kitchen counter and leaning back, his arms crossed.

“If you’re not up for it, you should have just told Hui hyung. I could have taken over the tutoring”, he said.

Hongseok opened his can and took a sip before answering.

“It’s fine, Changgu-ya. Really”, he leaned against the counter across from Changgu and finally dared to look at his best friend. Right then, he regretted it.

Changgu knew him well and could see right through his lies.

Slowly, the younger made his way over and put a hand on Hongseok’s shoulder.

“I know you’re not being honest with me, hyung. But that’s okay. As long as you’re not lying to yourself.”

Changgu showed him a pitiful smile and Hongseok pressed his lips together, adverting his gaze to stare at the beer in his hand.

Once Changgu walked out of the kitchen, Hongseok pulled a hand through his hair, a swear escaping his lips in a whisper. He drowned his beer down in one go and threw the can in the bin, annoyed at himself for getting himself in this situation in the first place. He should have known it wouldn’t go well; he should have known that working with her would make him feel this kind of way. But he didn’t listen to his guts and just said yes, when his hyung had asked him. And now here he was, in a state of denial and annoyance, mostly at himself but also at Changgu for catching on so quickly.

“Hey, Hongseok hyung”, he heard someone behind him say and he turned around, seeing Wooseok. A smile appeared on Hongseok’s lips.

“Wooseokie, what’s up?”, he turned around to face Wooseok and tilted his head to the side as he watched the younger boy who was nervously chewing on his bottom lip.

“Well, I, uh, I wanted to ask you something”, the way Wooseok looked down at his intertwined fingers, made Hongseok feel uneasy.

“Of course, what is it?”, he asked, worry on his face. Wooseok bit his lip, before looking up.

“How did you… well, how did you manage to stay close friends with Hyojong hyung when he started dating Hui hyung?”

That question surprised Hongseok, to say the least. He raised his eyebrows and scratched the back of his head.

“Well, we just did. Nothing changed, we just stayed friends. I mean, I am friends with Hui hyung too, so there was no reason to avoid them or anything. Why do you ask, Wooseok-ie?”

Hongseok truly was confused. To his knowledge, the only best friend Wooseok had was Hyunggu. And Hyunggu had just broken up with his long-term girlfriend. So why ask that question now? Or maybe, was he seeing someone?

As it turned out, the question had been asked for a completely different reason.

Wooseok seemed uncomfortable now, pulling a hand through his hair and looking around the room as if he was trying to find something or someone to get him out of this mess. Hongseok was confused, to say the least.

“Wooseokie?”, he asked cautiously. Wooseok swallowed hard and took a deep after.

“I meant, how did you stay friends with him, when he started dating another _guy_?”

Oh. Hongseok blinked a couple of times, before he leaned back again, his eyes widened a bit. Out of everything, he definitely had not expected this to be a worry of Wooseok’s. Sure, Jinho had been especially confused and unsure about Hui and Hyojong, but Jinho was older and his parents were the most conservative people Hongseok had ever met – but Wooseok?

“Why would I not stay friends with him? With _both_ of them? It’s love, Wooseok. Love is love, no matter what gender. Don’t you think so, too?”

Wooseok seemed to think about that, his face red and his eyes still looking unsure. To some extend Hongseok understood the younger boy, he had to admit. When Hyojong told him about being bisexual back in the day, his first reaction had been a horrible one, one he wasn’t proud of. For all he cared now, he just didn’t want Wooseok to ever make the same mistakes. But then again…

“Wait, why do you ask?” Hongseok’s alarm radar started going off and Wooseok quickly shook his head, coughing.

“No reason, I was just thinking. You know, like, how you dealt with this as Hyo hyung’s best friend. That’s all. Really. There is nothing more to my question.”

In the way he spoke, Hongseok could clearly hear that he wasn’t being honest. For a second he thought about calling him out, but then he thought about it again and decided against it. If Wooseok wasn’t ready to share what was bothering him, he would be the last one to make him speak.

“Okay. If you say so”, Hongseok tried to give Wooseok a reassuring smile, but he wasn’t sure it was working.

About an hour passed by, Hongseok was now seated in the living room with Yanan, Changgu, Wooseok and Shinwon, when the doorbell rang once again and Yanan got up to open the door. At some point Hongseok had succeeded (or kind of succeeded) to bury the conversation he had had with Wooseok into the back of his mind and far away enough to not ruin his night. If he wanted to get to the bottom of this, he would have to do it another time, when this thought wasn’t so fresh and new to him and just simply so god damn confusing.

So, with other stuff on his mind, he enjoyed the time with his friends and looked over to the door only, when Yanan came in, Hyunggu and Yuto right behind him. And just like every time Hongseok saw Hyunggu, he felt this strange feeling of guilt pooling up in his stomach, leaving his mouth a little dry and his heart beating faster.

“Hey everyone”, Hyunggu said and smiled at his friends. Yuto did the same, giving them all a wave. Hongseok smiled back but went on to look at his drink again rather quickly.

Hyunggu sat down on the floor next to the armchair Yanan now took a seat on, and Yuto found his way next to Hyunggu on the floor, giving him a soft smile.

The boys continued to drink beer and chat about this and that, when suddenly the doorbell rang again and everyone looked up, watching Yanan get up.

“Who’s that?”, Shinwon asked. Yanan grinned at them.

“Surprise”, Yanan said then, walking over to the door and leaving the rest of the boys confused. All of their friends were here, well, except for…

“Hui hyung!”, Hyunggu said, a big smile on his lips. Actually, everyone started smiling big, getting up to greet their friend. They all hugged and asked the oldest out of them how he was.

“Come on, let me sit first”, he laughed, taking a seat next to Hongseok now.

“So, hyung, what’s up? How come you can visit?”, Wooseok asked now and everyone nodded, wondering the same thing.

Hui leaned back and crossed his legs, laughing a bit.

“Well, I finished an assignment early and I thought I should check on my sons”, he grinned at them, “also”, he turned to look at Hongseok, “I wanted to know how the first lesson with Hana went.”

Hongseok swallowed hard and tried his very best to look at no one, especially not Changgu or Hyunggu. After clearing his throat and feeling everyone’s eyes on him, he tried to smile.

“Oh, uh, it went well”, was all he said before taking another sip of his beer.

“You took over Hana’s tutoring?”

_Well, just amazing._

Hongseok coughed, finally looking over at Hyunggu, who was staring him with a mixture of confusion and something close to betrayal. Instead of answering, Hongseok just nodded.

“I asked him to do it”, Hui explained then, his gaze shifting between Hyunggu and Hongseok, his face in a frown.

“But I thought you told him?”

When Hongseok didn’t say anything again, Hyunggu snorted now.

“Well, apparently one of my so-called closest friends didn’t feel like sharing he was gonna spend a whole lot of time with my ex.”

The silence that filled the room now left everyone feeling uneasy. Hyunggu would never talk this rudely to someone older than him, even if that person was his friend. Hongseok knew that Hyunggu had a right to be upset and that saying anything back would do nothing good for him.

With a sigh, he looked at Hyunggu and tried to keep a straight face.

“I’m sorry. I should have talked to you about it first”, he apologised, hoping Hyunggu would understand and just let them put this behind.

“Yes, you should have”, Hyunggu answered, but there was no sign of forgiveness in his eyes. Hongseok pulled a hand through his hair.

“Common, Hyunggu, what’s the problem? She needs a tutor, I am at the top of my class, I don’t see the big deal. It surely cannot be jealousy as you were the one who broke it off with her, or am I wrong?

And there it was, the thing Hongseok had wanted to avoid, but his feelings had gotten the best of him. He watched how Hyunggu’s face changed once more, showing signs of hurt. Just great.

“If you can’t see the problem, hyung, I guess there isn’t one”, he said through gritted teeth as he got up from his spot on the floor.

“Excuse me.”

He walked out of the room, soon followed by Yuto. Wooseok looked after the two, not moving an inch. Somehow, he felt like his help wasn’t necessary. Sinking lower into his chair, he crossed his arms and stared at the wall, trying to ignore the ever-growing feeling of jealousy in his chest.

“Hongseokie…”, Hui started now, putting a hand on Hongseok’s shoulder. But Hongseok just shook his head.

“I should go. Sorry for ruining the party.” And with that he walked over to the door, grabbed his bag and took on his shoes, walking out of the house just a moment later.

Hyunggu sat on the floor in Yanan’s guest room, arms wrapped around his legs, forehead resting on his knee. The thoughts in his head went crazy on him, not giving him even a second to rest, to try and understand what the fuck was going on. He didn’t hear the knock on the door and didn’t notice the figure taking a seat next to him on the floor. Only when a hand was put on his head, slowly stroking the hair on his neck, he looked up and straight into Yuto’s sad brown eyes.

“You alright?”, Yuto asked, his fingers still in Hyunggu’s hair.

The younger of the two stared at Yuto, his lips trembling slightly. If he was alright? He honestly didn’t know. Something like a whimper escaped his lips, before he looked away, pressing his lips together and fighting the urge to cry.

“Hyunggu-ya…”, Yuto wanted to pull him closer, but Hyunggu shook his head.

“Please, just.. don’t, okay?”, he whispered, still not looking at Yuto, who nodded and brought his hand to his lap, thinking about what and if he should say anything else.

For a few minutes they both remained still, both caught up in their own thoughts.

“I feel like a horrible person”, Hyunggu said then, so quiet that Yuto almost didn’t catch it. He turned his head to Hyunggu, seeing that the smaller boy was crying. Everything inside of him screamed, wanted him to pull Hyunggu close, right to his chest, to hug him until he felt better. But he knew better than that.

“Why would you think that?”, he asked instead, his hands in fists now.

“I left Hana because I realized I don’t love her the way I should and yet… thinking about her with Hongseok”, he sighed, letting his head sink back onto his knees, “I hate to think about that. To think about someone else holding her hand and holding her close. Someone else giving her what I couldn’t, I- I just hate it.”

Yuto tilted his head to the side, a small smile playing on his lips, sad maybe but still a smile.

“I get it”, he said, adverting his gaze to look out the window, “you’re not a horrible person, Hyunggu. You were with Hana for so long, she is your best friend and you disappointed not just her but yourself, too.”

Hyunggu listened to Yuto’s words with his heart banging against his chest.

“And it’s completely normal to not want to imagine your ex-partner with another person, especially someone you’re so close with. But that will go away because in your heart you know she deserves to be with someone who can give her all the things you couldn’t. And that is nothing to be ashamed of, or to hate yourself for, really.”

Now, Hyunggu looked at Yuto again, his head raised. He watched how Yuto’s eyes were fixed on the window, how the moonlight shined beautifully on his clear darkened skin. His heart did the same thing it ever did when he saw Yuto looking like this, in his own thoughts, worried but somehow peaceful. Hyunggu loved looking at Yuto when the latter didn’t notice, when he was focused on other things like homework or a video game. He hated to admit it, but the way his heart felt around Yuto had never been the case with Hana, not even once.

“Thank you”, he whispered then, bringing Yuto back into reality.

When their eyes met, both of them held their breath, not sure what to say or do.

Both their hearts were beating at the same speed, almost as if they were one. The moment felt long but yet so quick, the way they both slowly leaned in, their gazes shifting from eyes to lips-

“Yo, we wanna go grab some food, you guys in?”, Shinwon had burst into the room, looking at them with innocent puppy eyes. Yuto and Hyunggu both jumped up and cleared their throats, Yuto pulled a hand through his hair and nodded.

“Sure, that’s a great idea.”


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana is faced with a shocking truth. Hongseok and Hyunggu talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, just a quick warning about internalized homophobia in this chapter!! just slightly, but it's there.

When school started the next Monday, Hana was met by student body president Park Jihyo, an incredibly beautiful girl with shiny brown hair and a smile so sweet it could surely give you a sugar-shock.

“So, people have been asking if you and Hyunggu were willing to take over the school radio station for a few weeks, since it was so great when you did it the last time!”, her bright smile and shining eyes almost overwhelmed Hana enough to say yes. Almost.

“Oh, well, that’s really sweet, but uh, Hyunggu and I broke up, so I don’t think that’s gonna work out…”, Hana hated disappointing people, but disappointing Jihyo was a whole different deal because you could see the disappointment so clearly on her face. Hana cursed herself out.

“I’m sad to hear that, Hana. People loved you two together, I can’t believe you broke up”, she put a hand on Hana’s shoulder, “but you kind of, well, can’t back out of it”, Hana blinked a couple of times, not sure if she heard that right.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you got a free pass for the art project because you agreed to take over the radio station when needed. If you don’t do that, you’ll fail the art class.”

Hana felt her knees go weak. She had totally forgotten about that.

Once Jihyo had went to her own classroom, Hana slowly walked into hers, seeing Hyunggu on his usual seat next to Wooseok, just that neither of them was talking to the other. Now, this was odd.

Thinking about her last conversation, Hana decided that it would be better not to talk to Hyunggu just yet and give him some more time.

So, instead of walking over to him, she took a seat next to Chaeyoung (as she also wasn’t too keen on sitting next to Yuto, who, for whatever reason, had decided to drop her completely), who was violently typing something on her phone. Jisoo, seated behind them, leaned over in her seat to look at Hana, who put her head on the table and sighed.

“What’s up?”, Jisoo asked, her hand patting Hana’s head.

“Jihyo unnie. She just reminded me that I have to participate in the school radio to pass my art project”, Hana answered, her voice muffled since she was basically speaking right into the table.

“And that’s a problem because…?”, Chaeyoung wasn’t looking up from her phone, but had heard Hana anyways, apparently.

“Because it needs to be two people. And the last time I did it was with Hyunggu and now everyone is asking for Hyunggu!”, Hana sat up straight again, glaring at her friend, who stopped in her typing motion and slowly turned her head to look at Hana.

“Jeez, no need to get so worked up, Hana-ya. I get it, alright? Just find someone else to do it with.”

Hana continued to stare at Chaeyoung for a second, then she sunk back into the chair and pulled a hand through her hair.

“Right. Because it’s so easy to find someone who actually_ wants _to do the radio without getting anything out of it”, Hana said, the sarcasm very obvious.

“Well, you haven’t asked us yet”, Jisoo replied and Chaeyoung nodded. Now, Hana was surprised. Her eyebrows shot up.

“You would actually do the radio with me?”, she asked, a smile creeping onto her lips.

“Absolutely not”, was the answer that came out of Hana’s best friend’s mouths in union, making them grin at each other with sparkling eyes. Meanwhile the smile on Hana’s face faded.

“I hate both of you.”

When school ended that day, Hana still hadn’t talked to Hyunggu about the radio show and she wasn’t so sure she ever would. If she were honest, she’d just rather find someone else to it with her than force it on Hyunggu simply because he had been her partner the first time around.

Even back then he had only done it to help her, not because it was required of him. His art project had been a straight A, obviously, since Hyunggu was good at everything he did. Jihyo had been the one to ask Hana to do it in the first place, since the usual hosts had extra-curriculars they had to take care of once every few months and for that time span they needed new people to get the show going. If she hadn’t mentioned that Hana would be freed of the art project, she dreaded more than she’d like to admit, she would have never said yes. Hyunggu had been all for it and when Jihyo said that it would be best if she found someone to co-host with her, he had of course offered to do it with her. Because that was just the kind of person he was.

Thinking about that did nothing to help her heal, in fact it only made everything worse. She didn’t want to be reminded of how amazing Hyunggu was, in literally every way possible, but it wasn’t like she could just get herself to think of something else. Her mind was full of her ex-boyfriend, her actual best friend and the person she trusted most in the world and there was no way of stopping it.

Or at least so she thought.

Walking to her bike, that she had for once in her life actually rid to school, she passed the gym building and knowing Hyunggu’s schedule by heart still, she was very well aware of today being the day basketball practice happened.

Of course, she couldn’t go _into _the gym, so instead she looked through one of the windows (yes, maybe a little bit of a stalker-ish thing to do, but hey, a little peeking never hurt anyone, did it?), spotting Hyunggu right away talking to Shinwon. Interestingly enough, Wooseok stood pretty far away from Hyunggu, his arms crossed, and his eyes fixated on something in the opposite direction of where his best friend stood. To say Hana was confused would be the understatement of the century.

A thought crossed her mind, a thought that maybe this was because of her and how she had kissed Wooseok at the party, but no that couldn’t be it. Obviously not everything was about her and she was pretty sure Hyunggu didn’t care about the kiss. So, it had to be something else.

Her mind wandered back to another incident one she hadn’t really given much thought before now. Wooseok had been furious the last time he had seen Yuto sit on his seat in class. He had yelled and accused Hyunggu of replacing him and, if Hana was not mistaken, asked Hyunggu if Yuto was also the reason he had broken up with Hana…

She allowed the idea to creep up in her head for less than two seconds, but it still lingered in her brain. _Was Yuto the reason Hyunggu had ended things with her?_

Her eyes followed Hyunggu still, who was listening to coach Lee now who stood before his team and probably told them about the schedule of the day or gave some motivational speech about the next game coming up in two weeks. Obviously, Hana couldn’t hear but if she were honest, she didn’t know if she would have been able to listen to him even if she could.

With her thoughts circling around this one question, she wasn’t so sure she could ever move again, let alone get home.

This couldn’t be true, right? Surely, this wouldn’t be the reason _at all_. A strange feeling spread inside of her, a feeling she normally only felt when she was nervous, when something scared her so much, made her so anxious, that she started shaking, her body not able to calm down. Feeling like this, Hana hated it. It let her feel weak and small, something she never wanted to admit to being.

Slowly, without knowing how she was able to move her muscles, stepping back and continuing the walk to her bike.

She could only hope that this feeling would let her go eventually.

Sweat was dripping down Hongseok’s face when Coach Lee blew his whistle for the final time this practice. He leaned forward, putting his hands on his knees, trying to steady his breathing.

“Good training guys! I’ll see you tomorrow!”, the couch shouted, and everyone nodded, showing each other thumbs ups or high fiving.

When he stood straight up again, Hongseok saw Hyunggu wiping his face off with a towel and for a second he really wanted to talk to him, to apologise and make up. He decided against it, though. Mostly because a part of him kind of thought he deserved to be treated this way, to be looked at the way Hyunggu did.

“Here”, it was Yuto who held out his hand holding on to another towel to Hongseok now, something like a smile on his lips but not really. Hongseok looked at Yuto’s face and back at the towel before he finally took it.

“Thanks”, he said, wiping the sweat off his face and neck, eyeing Yuto with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. The both of them hadn’t really bonded, mostly because Yuto mostly hung around Hyunggu and Hongseok had avoided hanging out alone with Hyunggu for basically three years.

“I don’t know if it’s my place, but you should talk to Hyunggu, hyung”, it took Hongseok a small moment to realize that Yuto had really just said that.

“Excuse me?”, the curiosity was fully taken over by confusion now.

Yuto shrugged.

“He is very upset about all of this. You’re one of his closest friends and of course he trusts you, but it’s also strange for him to think about you spending so much time with Hana”, he continued and Hongseok found himself looking over at Hyunggu, who was listening to Changgu and chugging a bottle of water at the speed of light.

“But why? I mean, I am obviously only helping Hana with schoolwork and that’s it. Hwitaek hyung did that for years and Hyunggu never cared”, looking back at Yuto, a frown was on Hongseok’s face.

The younger boy looked at him silently for a few seconds, before he shrugged once again.

“Well, I can’t really say anything about that. After all, I don’t know Hwitaek hyung that well.”

There was something else there, Hongseok was sure of it. Something else Yuto was thinking, but not saying out loud.

Only when Yuto was back at Hyunggu’s side walking into the locker rooms, it came to Hongseok.

Hyunggu never cared about Hwitaek hyung tutoring Hana because he wasn’t into girls.

He stopped in his step, staring at Hyunggu’s back, how it disappeared just a few seconds later behind the now closed door.

Maybe, he thought, maybe Hyunggu _knows_.

He shook that thought off.

No, there was no way. No one knew. Fine, except for Changgu. But that had been more of a coincidence than an actual confession from Hongseok’s side.

So, still, no. There was no chance that Hyunggu knew. Hongseok had been perfect at his little play pretend. He hadn’t spent much time with her anyways, so who in their right mind would even guess he thought of her in that way?

When he finally arrived in the locker room himself, everyone had already gone off to the showers and so he sat down for a second, still the towel in his hand ready to wipe off some more sweat.

Normally, he wouldn’t mind showering with the rest of the team, but today he had the feeling that being in proximity with Hyunggu wouldn’t do him much good. He felt naked when he was around him anyways, so why should he literally strip in front of him and show him every single insecurity he had ever had? It sucked that in all his confidence, Hongseok suddenly felt like the smallest person on earth when it came to Kang Hyunggu. He knew that he could probably have around 70% of the girls at this school if he just wanted to and some part of him had always been proud of that, but the thing was… he didn’t want any of them. Ever since he had first laid his eyes on Choi Hana, he had wanted her. Had wanted to call her his girlfriend.

The first time he had seen her was on his first day of his second year in High School. She had looked adorable in her uniform and the red bowtie in her dark hair, flushed cheeks and a face full of curiosity. She took his breath away, made him almost trip over his own feet. Back then, Hyojong had still been at their school and had walked next to Hongseok, laughing at him when it happened. But Hongseok hadn’t cared, he had just wanted to walk up to her and say hello, to find out her name and tell her his. In that moment, for the first time in his life, Yang Hongseok believed in love at first sight.

All his hopes were crushed though, when he saw her sitting outside the same day on the stone steps leading up to the gym and right next to the soccer field, with none other than Kang Hyunggu, a boy he knew because of Jung Wooseok, whom he played Basketball with outside of school. They were holding hands and Hyunggu was telling her a story, making her laugh. And Hongseok wouldn’t lie if he said that that was by far the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

From this day on, Hongseok tried his best to keep his distance from Hana which turned out to be quite the challenge considering she was Hyunggu’s girlfriend and hung out with the team a whole lot. Thankfully, once Hana befriended her classmates Jisoo and Chaeyoung she started hanging out with them more, leaving the boys to themselves. It wasn’t easy to be around Hyunggu. Not because Hongseok didn’t like the younger boy but more like the exact opposite. Hongseok liked Hyunggu a lot, he was kind and sweet and funny and with every passing second Hongseok hated himself more because his feelings for Hana wouldn’t go away.

“Hyung? Aren’t gonna shower?”, Yanan came back into the locker room, a towel around his waist and Hongseok winced before he looked up at his tall friend. Clearing his throat, he smiled.

“Oh, no I will. Just had to catch my breath for a second”, he lied. Yanan nodded, giving him a smile, before walking to his locker and getting ready to dress himself. 

Hongseok looked down at his hands, smile fading. He stayed seated until he saw Hyunggu walking in, getting up right away and taking one more towel from the stack next to the door. At last, he could take a shower.

Being in something like a fight with your team captain wasn’t exactly Hyunggu’s ideal vision of a successful training. He had been distracted most of the time, not just because Hongseok obviously couldn’t care less, playing the best he ever had before, but also because his mind was racing with thoughts about how that fight had led to him and Yuto almost kissing.

Thinking about that almost kiss still made Hyunggu’s heart flutter but also made him want to crawl into his bed and sleep until he had forgotten it had ever happened. The whole situation was confusing as hell and part of him, a very small part of him, was begging him to just finally give in, to let him be who he wanted to be, but the greater part of him refused, didn’t want to believe it. It was stupid, really, because there was no doubt about how he felt with Yuto. He had said it before and he would say it again – his heart did things when he was with him, it had never done when he was with Hana.

Now, Hyunggu was standing outside the gym, hands buried deep in the pockets of his pants. He had been contemplating talking to Hongseok, not exactly because he felt different towards the matter but because he knew that Hongseok never meant any harm. They were friends, very good and close friends and Hyunggu would be ridiculing himself if he really thought Hongseok could ever do that to him.

When the door opened, Hyunggu looked up. Everyone else had already left so there was only one more person that could come out the gym and yes, it was Hongseok who came walking his way now. He was looking at his phone, though, which lead to Hyunggu having to call his name for him to notice someone was waiting for him.

“Hyung”, Hyunggu said loudly and Hongseok looked up, startled.

“Hyunggu-ya. Were you… were you waiting for me?”

Hyunggu nodded.

Hongseok, who had stopped in his step, licked his lips now, a nervous look on his face.

“Why?”, he asked then. Hyunggu swallowed.

“I wanted to apologize. I was way out of line, hyung. I know you just took over the tutoring because Hui hyung asked you to and honestly that’s great, really. I know that Hana desperately needs someone to help her with maths and you’re really smart, hyung. I should be thankful instead of unnecessarily jealous”, a small smile crept onto Hyunggu’s lips. He tried to read Hongseok’s face, but he couldn’t, somehow his hyung seemed a mixture of relieved and… well, he couldn’t tell. There was an emotion in his face Hyunggu couldn’t really pin to anything.

“It’s fine, Hyunggu. I get where you were coming from. I should have asked you first before saying yes to Hui hyung. After all she is your ex-girlfriend and I will be spending a lot of time with her. I can see how that can be irritating for you, with me being your friend and all”, even though Hongseok did sound sincere, Hyunggu still felt like something was off. He tried to not let this thought get the best of him.

“But she is also your friend. So no, it’s totally fine.”

They were staring at each other for a second, Hyunggu still wearing that smile and Hongseok forcing a smile back – before finally they both sighed in relief.

“I’m glad we talked this out, Hyunggu. I felt very sorry”, Hongseok’s face lit up for real now and Hyunggu was convinced for a second that the other emotion had never been there.

But that only lasted for as long as they walked to Hongseok’s car together, the older boy getting in and driving off, leaving Hyunggu alone with his bike. Then, once Hongseok’s headlights were not to be seen anymore, Hyunggu lost his smile.

Something felt off. And he was determined to find out what it was.

Two days later, Hana still hadn’t fixed her problem with the radio station. Jihyo had texted her several times over the last few days, asking about what her plan was and if she had already found another person to host the radio with her. The student body president had, of course, also led slip that the usual hosts were to go on break in a week which left Hana not just speechless but also desperate.

All of this wouldn’t have been that bad if only Jihyo hadn’t told all her other upper classmates that Hana was about to take over the radio station with a still unknown co-host (probably to make it sound more exciting than it actually was), which led to occasional greetings from people Hana had never talked to before, telling her how much they were looking forward to hearing her every morning starting next week.

On the third day, Hana came to school early, leaving her bike where she had for the past few days, walking into her classroom to find only one other person sitting at his desk. It was Yuto as always on the seat next to hers.

To say that it had been a little bit awkward between those two would be an understatement. She was sure that Yuto didn’t do it on purpose, after all he had never given her a reason to assume those things, but in her mind, he hated her just as much for hurting Hyunggu as she did herself. Sure, Hyunggu had broken up with her, hence hurt her first but that hurt was not to be compared with what Hana had done.

Now, she slowly made her way to her seat, lips pressed together, and hands tightly clasped around her gym bag.

“Good Morning”, she said quietly, taking off her backpack and carefully sitting down after. Yuto presented her with half a smile, looking away and back at his phone once she was fully seated.

Internally, Hana corrected herself. _This_ was awkward. The peek of awkwardness, to be exact.

The silence drove her insane and she started chewing on her bottom lip, giving Yuto side glances here and there. To her horror, that didn’t stay unnoticed.

“Can I help you with something?”, Yuto suddenly said, making Hana wince.

“What?”, she somehow pressed out. Yuto was still looking at his phone, but she could see that the corners of his lips were slightly shooting up.

“You keep looking at me, Hana. Can I help you with something?”, he repeated himself and now Hana felt herself blush. She cleared her throat.

“N-no. Sorry. I just- well I was just wondering how it comes you’ve been avoiding me”, and there it was. The thing she had definitely not wanted to say. Shit.

Surprised by this sudden confession, Yuto put his phone down and turned his head to Hana, eyebrows rising.

“What makes you think I’ve been avoiding you? We used to hang out, sure, but I thought it was clear I would be on Hyunggu’s side if you ever were to break up”, ouch. That, she had not expected. Her face turned even redder.

“Well, I guess it wasn’t”, she muttered, looking away. Great, now everything was even worse. Yuto sighed.

“I like you, Hana. You’re a cool girl and I really enjoyed being your friend. But you didn’t see Hyunggu after the party that day, you didn’t see how fucking horrible he felt. If you were in my shoes, you wouldn’t be your biggest fan either.”

She had expected that, at least. Still, didn’t exactly make her feel better.

“But I’m not”, she whispered, making Yuto frown in confusion.

“You’re not what?”

“My biggest fan”, she turned her head towards him again, trying her hardest not to start crying like the weak idiot she was.

Yuto was surprised (again) at that statement and thought about what to say or if he even should say anything, when Hana continued.

“I get it. You chose his side because you’re good friends with him. But you know, a part of me thought that we were too. Before Hyunggu broke up with me, I mean. And yeah, I was horrible to him at that party and I deeply regret everything I said. He has understood that and is on his way to forgive me, so why can’t you?”

A silence followed; a silence Hana couldn’t really decipher. She continued to look at Yuto, eyes sad, a part of her hoping he would maybe give in, be her friend again, treat her like she was a person. But instead, after a few more seconds of that odd silence, Yuto chuckled. Hana got goose bumps. That hadn’t been just a regular chuckle, it had been a bitter one, one that freaked her out because it most definitely wasn’t sincere or a sign of joy.

“You really don’t know?”, he said then, a strange grin on his face, maybe more like a grimace. Hana didn’t answer.

“My god, Hana. You’re a smart girl, but this…”, he shook his head, “you called Hyunggu gay because he didn’t fuck you, do you even know how fucked up that is? Not to mention you did it in front of everyone. You said it like it was something bad, something to be ashamed of. Made Hyunggu feel like he should be sorry for it, if it was the case. It’s almost like it’s okay to be gay as long as it’s not my oldest friend.”

Anger was displayed on Yuto’s face, such great anger that Hana had stopped breathing at one point. Had held her breath for as long as she could, before finally letting it out, eyes wide.

“Yuto-“, she started but stopped right there because even if she wanted to say something she wouldn’t even know what, wouldn’t even know how. Her chest wouldn’t stop hurting, sending shocks through her whole body. Hana was certain that if she hadn’t been seated, she would have fallen to the floor, defeated.

_Was Yuto the reason Hyunggu had ended things with her?_

The thought came back so rapidly, slapping her face, shaking her awake.

“I had no idea”, she finally breathed out and for a second Yuto’s angry visage faded, showing signs of yet another bit of surprise.

“You had no idea that was?”, he asked, annoyed.

Hana swallowed hard but she already knew that she wouldn’t be able to say it without breaking down. It was a sensation she had never though she would be feeling, something so deep and sensitive it made her want to run away, back to ten minutes ago when she had just been sad, she had lost a friend.

“Hana?”, Yuto said again, leaning forward to look at her more closely. But Hana still wouldn’t budge. Instead, she got up, making her chair move over the floor with a horrible noise.

Before Yuto could say anything, she ran out of the classroom in desperate need to get to the girl’s bathroom and breathe somewhere where she wasn’t forced to look at the guy that was so painfully obvious in love with the guy she had thought she would marry one day.


	6. six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for Hana to start the school's radio.  
Yuto says yes to Hana's reuqest.  
And Hyunggu cries a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!!  
So sorry it took me literally 9 months to post a new chapter. I guess you could say that I, uh, birthed this. Okay, anyways. PENTAGON FIRST WIN TODAY!!!! I thought as a celebration I could finally post the next chapter!
> 
> also I must tw again for internalized homophobia in this chapter!!

Chaeyoung sipped on her iced latte and stretched out her neck, watching the road carefully. Jisoo, currently next to her, looked at her phone again and chewed on her bottom lip.

“Did she text you already?” Chaeyoung asked. Jisoo shook her head.

“I would have told you, so stop asking already,” was her mumbled response and Chaeyoung sighed, checking the road again. As if on cue, Jisoo’s phone vibrated and Chaeyoung’s eyes snapped back to her friend who opened the text and showed her phone to Chaeyoung.

“She’s on her way. But she didn’t say anything about whether she found anyone,” Jisoo chewed her bottom lip again. The blonde one of the duo just nodded, her thoughts traveling to their best friend who had so much on her plate right now.

A few minutes later, said best friend walked into the café and headed straight to Jisoo and Chaeyoung’s table, sitting down on the only free chair around it. She groaned as she laid her head down on the table, forehead pressed against the cold wood.

Jisoo and Chaeyoung shared a quick look before Jisoo cleared her throat.

“So, did you, uh, find anyone to help you out?” she asked carefully.

Hana just groaned again.

“I guess that’s a no,” Chaeyoung commented before she finished her latte and put the cup down on the table.

“But you shouldn’t give up just yet, Hana-ya. I’m sure someone will come around. I mean, I would but they want a guy preferably, so, yeah.”

Hana looked up now, giving her friend an irritated look.

“You would _not_ do it, stop messing around. To be honest, _I_ wouldn’t do it either! But back then it just seemed like such a fun thing to do with your boyfriend,” her head fell back onto the table and her two friends shared another look. Both of them had no idea what to say or do and if there even was anything they could say or do.

“When did Jihyo say you have to start doing the radio again?” Chaeyoung asked now and Hana lifted her head just slightly, placing her chin on the table now instead of her forehead.

“I have to find someone until Monday. So, I have exactly one day left. No joke, I think I’m just gonna take the failed mark. I don’t wanna face the humiliation of having to admit I don’t have anyone to do it with.”

After that, neither Jisoo nor Chaeyoung knew what to say (again). It was obvious that their friend had completely lost all hope and that no matter what they would say it wouldn’t make a difference, anyways. So Chaeyoung put her hand on Hana’s head and Jisoo on Hana’s arm and they both started to pat the respective body parts in what was supposed to be a comforting manner.

The next day, the oh-so dreaded Monday, Hana walked back and forth in front of the school’s radio room and went over what she had practiced saying over and over again in her head. Her fellow students were giving her strange looks, but Hana didn’t really notice, nor would she have really cared.

It had been a welcome distraction from her last encounter with Yuto and now it had come to an end. She had almost gone insane thinking about who she could get to do the radio with her, had asked everyone she knew and had even dared to post something in the years KakaoTalk group chat just to be ignored. But in the end, it had done her a favour, worrying so much about finding a partner, because her thoughts were occupied, and her anxiety focused on something else than what she had figured out a few days ago.

The door to the room opened and Jihyo stood in front of her now, a wide smile on her lips.

“Ah, there you are. Come in, your co-host is already here.”

Hana stopped in her motion and froze. The only body part moving were her eyelids. Blinking at Jihyo she failed to comprehend the words the girl had just said to her. Her _what now_? For a second excitement ran through her body - was it Hyunggu waiting for her inside? Had he decided to help her after all? But that excitement died soon enough when she remembered that she had just seen Hyunggu in the cafeteria with Wooseok and that he had definitely not left there before her.

Once she found the ability to walk again, she slowly nodded and walked into the room only to be welcomed by someone she really would have never expected to see.

“Hongseok oppa?” she asked in surprise.

Hongseok stood in front of the window that showed the build in radio station, his hands buried in the pockets of his pants with his dress shirt loosely hanging over them. His tie was neatly tied around his neck and his hair fell into his eyes when he looked over at the door and directly at Hana.

She was still in shock, staring at Hongseok in pure confusion. Why was he here? Why did he volunteer to take part in something that would not benefit him in the slightest?

“Well, now that we’re all here, I think we should get started. Hana, you know the drill, I know, but Hongseok doesn’t so I’ll explain,” Jihyo stood in front of them now, her wide smile still on her lips and started explaining to Hongseok how all of this was planned. First, Hana and Hongseok would go and sit behind that window on the two chairs in front of the microphones. Then they would go over the script for the day before finally going on air. Not really difficult, but the job still came with some expectations. Hongseok nodded before going into the room with Hana who had stayed quiet the whole time, still not exactly sure what she was supposed to say or do. Hongseok could have mentioned it to her last week, that was if he had known back then what he was going to do today. As Hana sat down, she watched Hongseok, saw how he looked around the setup, the round table with a few buttons they could press to either be heard or not, to stop the music or change it to a different song. His eyes scanned over the script in front of them, taking it into his hands and carefully reading the words written on it.

How could he be so calm? He had practically saved Hana from failing a class, had swept in on a white horse when she had thought she had hit rock bottom. How could he just sit here and not acknowledge what was going on?

She looked over at the window, seeing Jihyo standing there with her arms crossed, smiling.

“Hana-ya, are you gonna check the script?” she then said, sounding quiet robotic over the speaker, and Hana quickly nodded, taking the script into her hands, more like pretending to read it since she couldn’t exactly focus on that right now. Her heart was doing a weird thing, was skipping a beat once in a while or at least felt like it did. The questions kept repeating in her mind and she would have loved to just blurt them out at the older boy, but she was way too anxious to do it in front of Jihyo.

“Alright then, are you ready for a quick run through?” Jihyo’s robotic voice echoed through the room again and Hana looked up at her and then at Hongseok who was looking back at her, making her heart jump again. Why on earth was it doing that? She nodded just slightly and swallowed whatever frog had decided to house in her throat now before letting her eyes wander to the script again.

They read their lines one by one, made some changes here and there, and finally nodded at Jihyo, who happily clapped her hands.

“Perfect! I’ll get you guys on air today but starting tomorrow Yeo Changgu will take over. He is part of the film club, but gets some extra points volunteering here. So, now. Why don’t we start?”

Once they finished the live show (which Hana, somehow, survived without sounding too astonished), Hana took off her earphones and looked over at Hongseok once again, who was already getting up and gathering his things. This was her last chance to talk to him before classes continued so she needed to be quick. But once she had gotten up, ready to put her hand on his arm to hold him back, he was already halfway to the door.

“Op-,” she started, but he opened the door right in that moment, leaving Hana no time to come in between him and Jihyo who was now back to giving them her absolutely gorgeous wide smile.

“You did great! I am so happy this all worked out. Well, I’ll be off. Walk with me Hongseokie?”

With just a little wave towards Hana, the boy walked out after Jihyo, leaving Hana alone. For a second, she just stood there looking at the space he had just been in, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Walking out of the room a few minutes later, she was met by her two best friends who were playing with each other’s hair and giggling. Hana raised her eyebrows at them.

“Wanna get in there? It’s empty and won’t be used for at least another couple of hours,” she pointed at the door behind her with her thumb, a smirk on her lips. Immediately, Jisoo and Chaeyoung jumped apart, faces turning crimson. Hana chuckled.

“Common, we have English in five minutes,” she linked her arms with theirs and basically dragged them to their classroom a floor down.

“You know, you could have told us that Hongseok oppa agreed to help you,” Jisoo pouted when they walked around the edge to the next staircase. Chaeyoung nodded rapidly.

“We were so confused. Everyone was looking at us, really. As if we should have told them you were doing it with Hongseok.”

The double meaning of her words only came to the girl’s minds when they almost walked into Hyunggu once they entered their classroom’s floor. Hana felt herself stumbling over her feet when they came to an abrupt stop, the only thing holding her up were her friend’s hands grabbing her arm.

Hyunggu stared at her, his eyes a big question mark to Hana once again. This boy was supposed t be the person she knew best in the world and yet she couldn’t decipher anything about him anymore. She didn’t know if it had made him uncomfortable to hear Chaeyoung say such a phrase or if he simply didn’t care and was just startled that they had almost run each other over.

“The show was great, Hana-ya,” he finally spoke, an exceedingly small smile playing around his lips, barely noticeable, “you could have still asked me to do it, though. I wouldn’t have minded. But… I see that Hongseok hyung is doing a great job at helping you.”

Something about that last sentence seemed off to Hana, but she didn’t dare to say anything. She just cleared her throat and brushed one strand of her hair behind her ear.

“Thank you, Hyunggu-ya. I just, uh, well I thought that maybe we could still use some space. And I didn’t ask Hongseok oppa to help me, he just kinda showed up before the live broadcast.”

That made Chaeyoung and Jisoo’s heads spin around to Hana, their faces full of shock.

“He did what?” they said in unison. Hana blushed.

Hyunggu’s face, meanwhile, darkened just slightly.

“Did he now? Well, then, I guess that’s great. As I said, you did very well. I’ll see you in class.”

He walked off without giving them another glimpse and Hana felt her heart sink. She watched Hyunggu walk away and turning into their classroom, not looking back or anything. Even though she knew that she shouldn’t expect this from him anymore, it felt her with an aching heart. Meanwhile, her friends were still staring at her with wide eyes.

“I can’t believe he did that for you!” Jisoo exclaimed. Hana was thrown back to the here and now and blinked at Jisoo a few times before shrugging slightly.

“Me neither. I didn’t even mention it to him, so I have no idea how he even found out about me needing a partner.”

“Well, that probably wasn’t too hard to figure out. You asked about it in our year’s chat, maybe someone told Hongseok? Or he just saw the desperation radiating off of you when he saw you the last time,” Chaeyoung grinned at her. Hana rolled her eyes and continued dragging her friends to their classroom. English would start any second and she really didn’t want to be late.

“Shut up. I didn’t get the chance to ask him, he practically ran off the second we finished. I wonder what that was about,” Hana mumbled as they walked into their classroom. First thing she noticed was the eyes of every girl burning holes into her face. She stopped, blinking again.

“What’s going on?”

“The girls aren’t happy that you are so close to Hongseok hyung,” Wooseok suddenly said from beside her. He had stood at the front cleaning the blackboard, “they’re jealous,” he whispered that part to her, grinning. Hana sighed.

“It’s not like we are _that _close. He just happens to tutor me and probably heard I had to do this alone and pitied me,” she was about to walk to her own seat when she spotted Yuto there, doodling away on his notebook. She stopped in her track and her eyes wandered to Hyunggu, who was sitting on his chair leaned back with his eyes closed. Swallowing hard, she slowly made her way to her seat and sat down carefully a few instants later. Yuto didn’t look up but she could still sense that he tensed a little bit. Their last conversation echoed inside Hana’s mind and she narrowed her eyes, trying to get it out of her head.

_Was Yuto the reason Hyunggu had ended things with her?_

God damnit, she balled her hands into fists making her knuckles turn white. How was she supposed to continue sitting here when all she could think about was how Yuto had looked at her so full of anger and a kind of desperation she still tried to understand fully. How could she act like she hadn’t just figured out that Yuto was just as hopelessly in love with Hyunggu as she was?

“Good Morning, class!” their teacher came in and Hana’s gaze shot forward watching her as she put her bag down, smiling at them.

Hana’s issue had to wait until after class.

Closing her book after the lesson ended, Hana turned over to Yuto who hadn’t said one word during the last hour.

“I need you to switch seats with someone,” she said. Yuto slowly moved his head to face her, his eyebrows slightly raised.

“Excuse me?”

“I need you to sit somewhere else. I don’t want you next to me,” she continued, trying to keep a straight face.

Yuto sat up straighter in his chair, pulling a hand through his hair.

“Listen, I don’t know what you think happened the last time we talked, but-,”

“I think you know exactly what I think happened, Yuto. And I think that you know that I’m right, you’re just afraid to admit it. And that’s fine. But I cannot sit next to you or else I will constantly be reminded of you being in love with him.”

Yuto’s face turned white and he quickly looked around to check that no one was listening to their conversation. When he saw that no one was paying attention to them, he looked back over at her, his mouth in a straight line.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he whispered to her. Hana let out a bitter chuckle.

“Right. Do you think I’m stupid? I have loved him for half of my life, Yuto. I am the best person to judge if someone is in love with him or not. You fall into the first category.”

Now it was Hana who pulled a hand through her hair.

“I need you to understand that I don’t mind you loving a boy. I have never cared about that, ever. It’s just that you love this _one_ boy. And whenever I look at you, I can’t help but to think that he might even love you back and that that’s the reason he broke up with me. It breaks me, Yuto. Because if it’s true it means that I could never be able to make him happy, no matter how hard I’d try. It would mean that all of our years together are nothing but a lie, but a thing he had to construct because it was expected of him. It would mean that he never _genuinely _loved me. And I can’t- I can’t deal with that, not yet.”

Yuto watched her as she spoke and with every word she said, his anger died down. This wasn’t about her being an asshole or hateful. This wasn’t about her not accepting him as he was. This was about her being hurt. Yuto couldn’t help but to feel sad for her. All of this wasn’t her fault, she hadn’t chosen to fall in love with someone who could never really love her back the way she needed him to, even though he hadn’t fully admitted that to anyone but himself.

After a small pause in which Yuto just looked at Hana with fond eyes, he finally nodded.

“I’ll try and change seats. And I promise I won’t ask Wooseok.”

Hana felt some kind of relief rush over her. As she smiled, she thanked him and hoped that this would at least ease some of her worries.

Hyunggu sat outside the school his gaze fixed on the street as he was lost in his thoughts. He tried really hard to understand what exactly his thoughts were as they did nothing but confuse him. Hearing Hana with Hongseok this morning had left him with something that felt like uneasiness but not exactly jealousy. It had made him wonder about what would be if Hongseok tried to get closer to Hana. What would he do? What was he _supposed_ to do? Was there a rule for how he should feel about his ex-girlfriend getting new suitors? And what about Hongseok just showing up without being asked? Did that have any deeper meaning, or had he simply been nice because he knew no one else was after that job?

He sighed, pulling on his own hair as he leaned forward, lastly letting his face rest in his hands. This was not how he had planned this year to go. He was supposed to be happy, supposed to be with Hana. Supposed to know what he wanted. And yet, here he was. Confused, lost and in his own way lonely. It took everything in him not to cry again, like he had done so much these past weeks. It seemed as if that was his only purpose at the moment.

“Hyunggu-ya!” he heard a voice behind him and turned around, his face out of his hands now. Yanan came running to him, his hand in the air as he waved at the younger boy.

“Yanan hyung,” Hyunggu smiled as Yanan sat down next to him on the wall.

“What’s up? Are you okay?” Yanan asked now, putting his hand on Hyunggu’s shoulder. It was this small but endearing gesture that made everything in Hyunggu break down. He was suddenly crying, tears streaming down his face with no end in sight. Sobs erupted his small body, and he drowned his head in Yanan’s neck, telling him how sorry he was.

Yanan, obviously surprised by the sudden outburst of feelings, draped his arms around Hyunggu, patting his back carefully.

“Hyunggu-ya. What is it that you are so sorry for?” he asked quietly as he rocked Hyunggu back and forth just slightly.

Hyunggu couldn’t answer, not because he didn’t want to but because he didn’t know. Yes, what was he so sorry for? For not loving Hana the way he should? For not being the person, his parents wanted him to be? There were so many more things he could and should be sorry for.

He just continued crying, just continued to feel safe in his hyungs arms and felt himself calm down. The last time he had cried in someone’s arms it had been Yuto’s and that had not ended well for him. He had almost kissed Yuto. Had almost fallen for his deepest wish. But he couldn’t, there was no chance he could ever do that. Not with who he was, not with what was expected of him.

Yanan carefully pushed Hyunggu away from him, one of his hands shooting forward to wipe the tears away from his cheeks. He gave him a warm smile and put the hand back on his shoulder.

“Hyunggu-ya. You know you can always talk to me, right? No matter what. I’ll always be there for you. Me and the others too. I promise.”

Hyunggu sniffled. Then ne nodded and finally looked into Yanan’s eyes. He took a deep breath, ready to let out just a bit of what was going on, when-

“I think I’m gay.”

Hyunggu’s eyes widened at his own words and he threw his hand over his mouth, shock very visible in his face.

Even though also astounded, Yanan didn’t gasp or widened his eyes. Instead, he nodded, squeezing Hyunggu’s shoulders softly.

“That’s great, Hyunggu-ya. I hope you know that we would never ever judge you for that or love you less. Do you know that?”

Hyunggu just nodded, still in shock. Yanan smiled at him.

“You are such an amazing person, Hyunggu. Do you have any idea how happy you make everyone around you? This doesn’t change who you are, it just changes who you’ll love. And even if you ever fall in love with a girl again, that’s also fine. Or with someone who doesn’t label himself as girl or boy, Hyunggu, all of it is fine. You are who you are and being gay doesn’t change that at all. You are so loved by all of us, you are so precious to us. You make all of us so incredibly proud and happy to be your friends.”

Sometime during Yanan’s words, Hyunggu had started crying again, but this time it was out of a different emotion. He didn’t feel desperate, didn’t feel guilty. He felt genuinely happy, relieved, and simply _loved_. He wrapped his arms around Yanan and hugged him tightly, his eyes closed, and his lips pulled into a sincere smile. Yanan hugged him back right then, happy that his words had made Hyunggu stop being sad.

“Thank you, hyung. Really, thank you.” Hyunggu whispered into his ear now and Yanan smiled even wider, pulling him closer and hugging him even tighter.

They had decided to grab some food at a chicken shop around the corner and once Yanan had ordered them some chicken and soda, he looked at Hyunggu and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed.

“So, tell me, is there something going on between you and Yuto?”

Hyunggu stopped mid sip, staying frozen like this for a few seconds before clearing his throat and putting his drink back down.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, hyung,” he said dryly. Yanan laughed.

“Right. Well, fine. Then I guess it’s just a coincidence that you realised you’re into boys just a few months after getting close to him and basically spending every waking moment with him?”

Hyunggu didn’t know how to respond to that. So he just shook his head and bit his tongue.

“I can’t,” he said then. Yanan looked at him over his own drink that was now pressed against his lips.

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t like Yuto like that. I- I can’t do that to Hana.”

Putting his drink back down, Yanan took a deep breath just to let it out audibly the next second.

“Well, that’s not a no,” he finally said, tilting his head to the side.

Hyunggu blinked at him a few times.

“What?”

“That’s not a no to my original question about whether there is something going on between you and Yuto,” Yanan smiled innocently, playing with the can in front of him.

Hyunggu’s mouth was hanging open a bit and he felt himself blush. Coughing, he looked away then, taking another sip from his drink.

“Nothing happened between us,” he said afterwards, looking back at Yanan, “we just get along really well and, uh, we might have almost kissed once.”

“Now, that’s not nothing!” Yanan exhaled. “Why was it just an almost kiss?”

“Shinwon hyungie came in,” Hyunggu explained and Yanan groaned.

“Of course, he did. You know, Shinwon really needs to get a grip,” shaking his head the Chinese boy brought the can to his lips again but before he could take a sip, he continued talking.

“You know, I don’t think it would be too bad if that almost kiss turned into a real one. In fact, I think that would be phenomenal.”

“I told you, hyung. I can’t like him like that. Or anyone for that matter, not as long as I’m in school and see Hana every day. Do you even know how she’d feel if I suddenly let everyone know I was gay? She would feel so betrayed, so hurt. She would think I never truly loved her, which-,”

“Which you never did, not in the way she loved you at least,” Yanan finished for him. Hyunggu hesitated before he nodded.

Yanan leaned back again. “I get it. You don’t want to hurt her even more. But at what cost, Hyunggu? I like Hana, and yes, you have hurt her by breaking up with her, but you are also her best friend. And isn’t she yours too? Don’t you think she deserves an explanation? Deserves to know why you ended things with her?”

That made Hyunggu think. Had his view on the situation been wrong? But how could he ever tell her the truth? How could he tell her he wasn’t into girls like that, that he had basically lied to her for five years?

He sank back into his chair, looking at the table as his thoughts took over his consciousness again. Yanan watched him as he chewed on his bottom lip.

“My parents will be out of town this weekend,” he said after a few minutes of silence, making Hyunggu look up again, “I think we should have a get together with the boys. What do you think?”

Hyunggu bit his lip.

“When you say the boys, do you mean-,”

“Yes, of course Yuto can come.”

Yanan smiled. Hyunggu did too.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana and Hongseok have another tutoring session. Yuto goes to Yanan's house.

For more reasons than one, Hana was pretty nervous to see Hongseok at their next tutoring session. She had been afraid of him cancelling on her after he had practically been avoiding her ever since they did their first radio show. That was awkward, to say the least since they had to co-host the show every morning. In the end, he thankfully had not cancelled the session and so now she was sitting in their usual spot in the coffee shop, anxiously sipping on her drink.

When the door opened a few moments later and her head spun around to see Hongseok walk in, she felt her heart do that strange leap again. She still didn’t really know where it had come from or why it even happened in the first place, but she decided to treat it as a result of him saving her from getting a bad grade. Putting her drink down, she continued to look at the older boy who had his bag flung over his shoulder, wearing loose blue jeans and a white t-shirt that was straining over his biceps, which let Hana to almost choke on her coffee.

“Hey,” Hongseok lifted his arms to get the bag off his shoulder, causing his shirt to rise up and give Hana a glimpse of his perfectly toned stomach. Quickly, she looked away, feeling her cheeks burn.

“Hey,” she replied finally when Hongseok had sat down, looking through his bag to get out the material for this lesson. Now Hana dared to look at him again, watching him as he laid the math book and his notes out on the table and finally took his glasses out of their case and propped them on his nose, making Hana breath in sharply. Hongseok looked absolutely stunning with his round specs, almost like a hot professor at university and- wait, what? Hana felt her face burn again. Did she really just think about Hongseok being hot? Jisoo and Chaeyoung really had ruined her.

“So, how did you manage the problems I gave you last week?” Hongseok dove right in, giving Hana no chance to redeem herself whatsoever. She cleared her throat and shifted on her seat nervously.

“Alright, I think. Here”, she slowly pushed her notebook towards him so he could have a look at her solutions. He nodded, moving his hand to pull the notebook closer to him, but accidentally brushing her fingers and causing her to shiver. His eyes shot up to glance at the girl and when he saw the way she was blushing and how she was trying her best not to look at him, he felt himself forgetting the task at hand for a few seconds.

Moments like these made him feel like an even bigger asshole. Hyunggu was his friend, his dear, dear friend and Hana had belonged to him so many years. And yet, not a day had gone by in the last five years on which Hongseok had not found himself thinking about Hana. Found himself thinking about the way she would play with her hair when she was caught up in her thoughts, about how her eyes sparkled when she laughed and how her fingers always tapped to the beat when there was music playing. He found himself thinking about her eyes the most, about her lips and her dimples when she smiled. She had three, one on each cheek and one on her chin. Whenever he thought of them, he thought about what it would feel like to kiss them, how it would be to caress her face and feel them underneath his finger when she smiled at him.

See, Hongseok had been so deeply in love with Choi Hana for years now, that he had almost forgotten how it felt not to be. It wasn’t like he never dated anyone, he had had his fair share of girlfriends along the way, had screwed around a bit last year when he decided that being single and in love with a girl that was as unavailable as could be, meaningless sex could be a welcome distraction. That didn’t last long, though, because he got tired of the girls talking in whispers whenever he walked by and the constant remarks from his friends about him being a man-whore. So, after he had given up on sleeping around, he had gone back to pining after a girl he couldn’t have. Some part of him had hoped that maybe his feelings for Hana had disappeared with all of the distraction, but jokes on him, he had only started to notice her even more, especially when Hana and Hyunggu broke up, making Hana officially single. And when he had heard some of his classmates talk about her hosting the school radio with a still unknown co-host, curiosity got the best of him and he asked Nayeon, one of Jihyo’s best friends, who then went on to tell him that Hana actually didn’t have a co-host yet and Jihyo was panicking. Yeah, and that was when Hongseok had decided to play the part of the dumbass superhero, thinking that maybe he could score some points if he came in and saved Hana from the humiliation of not having a partner. Just that he didn’t know how to tell her. Which then lead to him just showing up Monday morning and avoiding her ever since, after every show they had done for the past three days, including this morning.

Coming back to reality, Hongseok cleared his throat and finally pulled the notebook towards him, reading over Hana’s solutions to the math problems. That’s what they were here for. He tried his hardest not to think about her hand being so close to his and how her fruity smell reached his nose and made him almost lose his mind.

“Good, you only got two wrong. Look,” back onto his perfect poker face, Hongseok pointed at the two wrong answers with his pencil, lifting his gaze a little to look at Hana who did not look at the notebook the way he expected, but at him. He felt his heart do some sort of cartwheel and a lump forming in his throat as he stared into her eyes, wondering why she hadn’t looked away like all the times before. Wondering, why she didn’t look at him the way she had before.

“Why did you do it?” she suddenly asked, making Hongseok blink.

“Well, I, uh, you showed me your answers so-,”

“Not this. Why did you come to the radio show on Monday? Why did you help me?”

Hana didn’t exactly know where her newfound courage had come from, but something within the last few moments had brought her over the edge. Hongseok and her hadn’t exactly been friends before, more like acquaintances that had hung out a couple of times because she was dating one of his closer friends. They had only had a handful of tutoring sessions, so it also wasn’t like he had suddenly started to care about her as some kind of teacher. So, of course she was curious.

Looking at Hongseok, who’s hair was falling into his forehead, almost into his eyes even, Hana forgot about his strong arms and the rest of his toned body. She just saw him. A 19 year old boy with stars in his eyes and red cheeks from the cold outside.

“I heard that you were still looking for a co-host and thought it would help you,” he finally spoke, sitting up straighter and adverting his gaze from hers, looking back down onto the notebook. Hana wasn’t satisfied, though.

“But why? It’s not like we’re close, is it?”

“Well, if we aren’t close, why am I here? Why would I take time out of my day for someone I didn’t care about?” Hongseok was still looking at the notebook, his voice almost dry, writing something next to her wrong answers. Hana couldn’t help but stare at him with a slightly opened mouth. He… cared about her?

“You care about me?” Hana asked.

Hongseok looked up at last, his eyes piercing into hers. His heart was beating rapidly in his chest and he thought hard about what to say next.

“I do. As a Dongsaeng, maybe even a friend. You dated Hyunggu for years and hung out with us and just because you broke up doesn’t mean all of the memories we made suddenly don’t mean anything.”

Hana was taken aback. Sure, she had hung out with the boys countless times, but she had always thought that Hongseok wasn’t too keen of her. He was polite, sure, he was to everyone, but he just never seemed to be eager to have her around him. So, hearing this left her speechless, but it also did something to her heart she couldn’t really explain.

“Now, are you ready to get back to math or do you have any more questions?”

Yes, did she have any more questions? If she were honest, her head was spinning, playing back memories of her and Hongseok during whatever meet up with the guys she could think about right now. He had always kept his distance but had smiled at her whenever their eyes met. It had always been a short-lived moment, and afterwards it had felt like nothing had even happened. Pieces started forming in her head, slowly giving Hana a full look onto what had been probably so ridiculously obvious to everyone but herself.

“Oppa, do you like me?”

To be honest, the question had come out without her even finishing the thought completely and so, when she looked at Hongseok now with her eyes wide, she wondered if maybe this was too far fetched. Just because he cared about her and had somehow acted strange around her did not mean he liked her. At least not like _that_. Right?

Hongseok felt his heart jump and his stomach drop when Hana spoke and he quickly thought about what to respond. He couldn’t tell her the truth now, could he? It wasn’t the right time – if there even was something like the right time in his situation.

With his brain working and his eyes scanning the girl in front of him, Hongseok could only think of one thing to say: No. But before he could even open his mouth, before he could straight up lie to Hana, he heard his phone ring and almost sighed out loud in relief.

“Hold on,” he mumbled, getting his phone out of his pocket and kissing Changgu in his head for this absolute perfect timing.

“Changgu-ya, what’s up?”

The moment had died and Hongseok had never been more thankful to his best friend than right now. Hana had not dared to mention the topic again, as she was too scared to get either answer. If it was a no she had totally embarrassed herself and if it was a yes, well, she honestly didn’t know what she would have done then. So, instead of asking him again, she simply waited for his call to be over and thought hard about any other question, preferably one about math to ask him.

When the school radio ended the next day, Hyunggu stared at the speaker on the right side of the front of the classroom. Wooseok next to him, his head on top of his arms that were stretched out over the table, looked over at him and raised his eyebrows.

“Is that what you’re gonna do every time these two finish a show now? Just stare at the speaker as if you wanna set it on fire?”

Hyunggu jumped a little in his seat and looked at Wooseok with wide eyes.

“I am not doing that.” He said.

“No, you are”, Wooseok sat up straight again, stretching his arms over his head and yawning loudly, “you know if you’re so bothered about those two getting cosy in the school radio’s booth, maybe you should have swept in to save her.” Wooseok obviously didn’t know what his words did to Hyunggu, completely unaware of his friends feelings towards the whole situation with Hongseok and Hana. It wasn’t exactly jealousy, so much he had figured. But it was also not _not_ jealousy. He didn’t like Hongseok hanging around Hana so much, didn’t like him being her tutor and now also her co-host of the radio show. Maybe, he had figured, it was because he had seen Hongseok with other girls, had seen the way he made them fall for him just to get into their pants and never call them again after. Yeah, Hyunggu was sure it was all just worry. He worried about Hana, his best friend, not his ex-girlfriend.

“It’s not my place to swoop in and save Hana anymore, Wooseok, you know that,” he finally mumbled, sinking lower into his chair. If conscious or not, his eyes wandered to the other side of the classroom where Yuto was sitting on his newly assigned seat. He had switched with a boy named Hansol, a rather quiet but also fairly popular kid. Why he switched, well, he had told Hyunggu that he just felt like sitting so far in the back made him inattentive. Hyunggu thought that it was a different reason, that Yuto simply didn’t want to sit next to Hana with everything going on. And if he was honest, it was somehow a relief that those two weren’t close anymore. Neither in their relationship nor in class. Even though Hyunggu knew that Yuto would never tell Hana what had happened between them, he still felt more secure with the seating arrangements now.

About ten minutes later, Hana came into the room, giving Hyunggu and Wooseok a smile before going to her seat in the back and sitting down next to Hansol who gave her a thumbs up and complimented today’s show. Hyunggu turned around slightly, watching how Hana smiled and thanked Hansol, her cheeks a little red. Here, he wasn’t feeling jealous at all. It didn’t bother him that Hansol’s eyes lingered a little longer on Hana’s face than necessary and it didn’t leave his stomach doing some weird acrobatics when he reached for the bracelet on Hana’s wrist and asked where she had got it from. Interesting, he thought, that his protectiveness only came out when Hongseok was around. Or maybe, he continued in his head, it was more worrisome than interesting.

Yuto was tired. Not because of lack of sleep or because of the boring classes he had sat through the past week. He was tired of waiting for something that seemed like it would never happen. Changing seats wasn’t a problem for him, he didn’t mind sitting next to Sora, a very smart and witty girl that drew really well. What he did mind was Hyunggu avoiding to spend time with him alone. Sure, he knew how it was and he had full understanding for his feelings but that did not change the fact that he was tired. His feelings for Hyunggu grew bigger every day, made him forget to eat, forget to get his homework done. Hyunggu made him feel like an elementary school student, all giggly and childish and he was sure that Hyunggu felt the same way, saw it in his eyes whenever they looked at each other, saw it in his smile whenever they talked. They both knew it was there and yet nothing was happening. That one almost kiss still made Yuto’s skin tingle and he cursed Shinwon for barging in and taking this chance from him.

Hana’s feelings, well Yuto would be lying if he said that he gave much thought to them. He understood that it was an uncommon situation, them dating for over five years and then breaking up because Hyunggu realised he wasn’t really in love with her, but just with the thought of what they could be if only he tried hard enough. Yuto himself had come to terms with his sexuality about two years ago and had even told his parents soon after, to which he was happy he had gotten a positive reaction instead of what he had feared. Something inside of him wanted to scream at Hyunggu to just finally admit it, to just tell everyone because if his parents had a good reaction, his oh-so conservative parents, everyone would. But it wasn’t his place, he couldn’t just go and tell Hyunggu what to do. If he wasn’t ready, so be it.

When Hyunggu had invited him to hang out with the boys on the weekend, Yuto had of course said yes and was now on his way to Yanan’s house, carrying a bag filled with chips and two bottles of cheap wine he had snatched from his mother’s cabinet, hoping she wouldn’t notice because they had been very far in the back. His thought were wandering around him and Hyunggu maybe getting another chance to be alone during this meet up, when he walked around the corner and onto Yanan’s street only to hear loud music blasting right then and there, coming from no other house than Yanan’s. Now, this wasn’t exactly the kind of environment he had thought he would see, but oh well. A little slower than before, Yuto walked over to the house and opened the door that somehow was only leaned in, seeing more people around than expected. There weren’t only the boys, but also a lot of girls and people he simply didn’t know.

“Yuto-ya!” He heard his name and turned to the side, seeing Yanan himself grinning at him.

“You made it!” Yanan came and hugged him and Yuto nodded, quickly hugging him back and then clearing his throat.

“I thought this was just gonna be a little get together with the boys?” Yuto asked carefully and Yanan nodded, sighing.

“Originally, yes. But of course the rest of the team figured out we were doing something without them and were super offended. So I invited them and, well, as you can see they went on and invited the rest of the school. I’ll have to continue making my rounds, Hyunggu is in the living room, just in case you were wondering. See you later!”

Yanan was gone like the wind an Yuto could only stare at the point he had just stood in, his face red. Of course Yanan had to mention Hyunggu to him right away. Coughing, Yuto made his way to the living room where he spotted Hyunggu sitting on the couch, deep in a conversation with Changgu, holding a red solo cup in his hand. Making his way over, Yuto also spotted Hana, who was talking to Hansol in another corner of the room. He smiled to himself. Maybe changing seats with him had really been the best thing to do for Hana. The way it looked Hansol was interested in her and perhaps that was exactly what she needed right now, someone to distract her from her broken heart.

“Hey guys,” Yuto arrived next to Hyunggu and Changgu and the former smiled brightly at him when he spotted him.

“You’re here!” He said excitedly, making Yuto’s heart skip a beat. Hyunggu hugged him tightly and sat back down after, letting Yuto high give with Changgu, who pointed at Yuto’s bag shortly after.

“Do you need to put that in the kitchen?” Changgu wanted to know and Yuto nodded.

“Should I just put it there?” He asked, lifting his shoulder a bit. Changgu nodded.

“Sure, just unpack the stuff and put it next to the other food and drinks. Yanan will appreciate it for sure,” Changgu smiled at him and Yuto smiled back, excusing himself before walking into the kitchen.

A few other people where in there as well, drinking or eating snacks, but Yuto didn’t give them much of his attention as he grabbed the food and drinks out of his bag to put them on the counter next to the other things people had brought or Yanan had bought in advance. Swinging the bag over his shoulder again, he was about to turn around and walk out again, when suddenly he heard a familiar name coming out of someone’s mouth behind him.

“I wonder if Hansol really is gonna make it. Popping Choi Hana’s cherry, who would have thought that that would ever be something to talk about. Bet he’s gonna have fun though, she’s hot.”

Yuto stopped in his step and felt his eyes widening and he was just about to turn around and confront whoever had said that, when suddenly he felt someone bump into him, causing him to throw over one of the open wine bottles on the counter, making a huge mess on the floor with shards and liquid on the floor.

“Sorry man, I didn’t see you there,” he heard the person who had bumped into him say, but he waved him off, turning around to see if he could spot the person who had said that about Hana earlier, but the kitchen had cleared after the mess had happened, no one wanted to help clean up, obviously. Yuto swore under his breath and pulled a hand through his hair.

The way it seemed, switching his seat with Hansol had not been such a good idea, after all.


End file.
